"They compelled me to tell them what I did, Miss Barrington," said the lad, who winced beneath her gaze. "Now there is really nothing to be gained by going any further into the affair. Shall I play something for you, Mrs. Macdonald?"

He turned as he spoke and would have edged away, but that one of the men at a glance from the girl laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't be in a hurry, Ferris. I fancy Miss Barrington has something more to tell you," he said dryly.

The girl thanked him with a gesture. "I want you to supply the most important part," she said, and the lad, saying nothing, changed color under the glance she cast upon him. "You do not seem willing. Then perhaps I had better do it for you. There were two men from Silverdale directly concerned in the affair, and one of them at no slight risk to himself did a very generous thing. That one was Mr. Courthorne. Did you see him lay a single stake upon a card, or do anything that led you to suppose he was there for the purpose of gambling that evening?"

"No," said the lad, seeing she knew the truth, and his hoarse voice was scarcely audible.

"Then," said Maud Barrington, "I want you to tell us what you did see him do."

Ferris said nothing, and though the girl laughed a little as she glanced at the wondering group, her voice was icily disdainful.

"Well," she said, "I will tell you. You saw him question a professional gambler's play to save a man who had no claim on him from ruin, and, with only one comrade to back him, drive the swindler, who had a pistol, from the field. He had, you admit, no interest of any kind in the game."

Ferris had grown crimson again, and the veins on his forehead showed swollen high. "No," he said almost abjectly.

Maud Barrington turned from him to her hostess as she answered, "That will suffice, in the meanwhile, until I can decide whether it is desirable to make known the rest of the tale. I brought the new song Evelyn wanted, Mrs. Macdonald, and I will play it for her, if she would care to try it."

She moved away with the elder lady, and left the rest astonished to wonder what had become of Ferris, who was seen no more that evening, while presently Winston came in.

His face was a trifle weary, for he had toiled since the sun rose above the rim of the prairie and when the arduous day was over and those who worked for him were glad to rest their aching limbs, had driven two leagues to Macdonald's. Why he had done so, he was not willing to admit, but he glanced around the long room anxiously as he came in, and his eyes brightened as they rested on Maud Barrington. They were, however, observant eyes, and he noticed that there was a trifle more color than usual in the girl's pale-tinted face, and signs of suppressed curiosity about some of the rest. When he had greeted his hostess he turned to one of the men.

"It seems to me you are either trying not to see something, Gordon, or to forget it as soon as you can," he said.

Gordon laughed at little. "You are not often mistaken, Courthorne. That is precisely what we are doing. I presume you haven't heard what occurred here an hour ago?"

"No!" said Winston. "I'm not very curious if it does not concern me."

Gordon looked at him steadily. "I fancy it does. You see that young fool Ferris was suggesting that you had been mixed up in something not very creditable at the settlement lately. As it happened, Maud Barrington overheard him and made him retract before the company. She did it effectively, and if it had been any one else, the scene would have been almost theatrical. Still, you know nothing seems out of place when it comes from the Colonel's niece. Nor if you had heard her would you have wanted a better advocate."

For a moment the bronze deepened in Winston's forehead, and there was a gleam in his eyes, but though it passed as rapidly as it came, Gordon had seen it and smiled when the farmer moved away.

"That's a probability I never counted on," he thought, "Still, I fancy if it came about, it would suit everybody but the Colonel."

Then he turned as Mrs. Macdonald came up to him. "What are you doing here alone when I see there is nobody talking to the girl from Winnipeg?"

The man laughed a little. "I was wondering whether it is a good sign or otherwise when a young woman is, so far as she can decently be, uncivil to a man who desires her good-will."

Mrs. Macdonald glanced at him sharply, and then shook her head. "The question is too deep for you—and it is not your affair. Besides, haven't you seen that indiscreet freedom of speech is not encouraged at Silverdale?"

In the meanwhile Winston, crossing the room, took a vacant place at Maud Barrington's side. She turned her head a moment and looked at him.

Winston nodded. "Yes, I heard," he said. "Why did you do it?"

Maud Barrington made a little gesture of impatience. "That is quite unnecessary. You know I sent you."

"Yes," said Winston, a trifle dryly, "I see. You would have felt mean if you hadn't defended me?"

"No," said the girl, with a curious smile. "That was not exactly the reason, but we cannot talk too long here. Dane is anxious to take us home in his new buggy, but it would apparently be a very tight fit for three. Will you drive me over?"

Winston only nodded, for Mrs. Macdonald approached in pursuit of him, but he spent the rest of the evening in a state of expectancy, and Maud Barrington fancied that his hard hands were suspiciously unresponsive as she took them when he helped her into the Silverdale wagon—a vehicle a strong man could have lifted, and in no way resembling its English prototype. The team was mettlesome, the lights of Macdonald's homestead soon faded behind them, and they were racing with many a lurch and jolt straight as the crow flies across the prairie.

There was no moon, but the stars shone far up in the soft indigo, and the grasses whirled back in endless ripples to the humming wheels, dimmed to the dusky blue that suffused the whole intermerging sweep of earth and sky. The sweetness of wild peppermint rose through the coolness of the dew, and the voices of the wilderness were part of the silence that was but the perfect balance of the nocturnal harmonies. The two who knew and loved the prairie could pick out each one of them. Nor did it seem that there was any need of speech on such a night, but at last Winston turned with a little smile to his companion, as he checked the horses on the slope of a billowy rise.

"One feels diffident about intruding on this great quietness," he said. "Still, I fancy you had a purpose in asking me to drive you home."

"Yes," said the girl, with a curious gentleness. "In the first place, though I know it isn't necessary with you, I want to thank you. I made Dane tell me, and you have done all I wished—splendidly."

Winston laughed. "Well, you see, it naturally came easy to me."

Maud Barrington noticed the trace of grimness in his voice. "Please try to overlook our unkindness," she said. "Is it really needful to keep reminding me? And how was I to know what you were, when I had only heard that wicked story?"

Winston felt a little thrill run through him, for which reason he looked straight in front of him and shifted his grasp on the reins. Disdainful and imperious as she was at times, he knew there was a wealth of softer qualities in his companion now. Her daintiness in thought and person, and honesty of purpose, appealed to him, while that night her mere physical presence had an effect that was almost bewildering. For a moment he wondered vaguely how far a man might dare to go, with what fate had thrust upon him, and then with a little shiver saw once more the barrier of deceit and imposture.

"You believe it was not a true one?" he asked.

"Of course," said Maud Barrington. "How could it be? And you have been very patient under our suspicions. Now, if you still value the good-will you once asked for, it is yours absolutely."

"But you may still hear unpleasant stories about me," said Winston, with a note the girl had not heard before in his voice.

"I should not believe them," she said.

"Still," persisted Winston, "if the tales were true?"

Maud Barrington did nothing by halves. "Then I should remember that there is always so much we do not know which would put a different color on any story, and I believe they could never be true again."

Winston checked a little gasp of wonder and delight, and Maud Barrington looked away across the prairie. She was not usually impulsive and seldom lightly bestowed gifts that were worth the having, and the man knew that the faith in him she had confessed to was the result of a conviction that would last until he himself shattered it. Then, in the midst of his elation, he shivered again and drew the lash across the near horse's back. The wonder and delight he felt had suddenly gone.

"Few would venture to predict as much. Now and then I feel that our deeds are scarcely contrived by our own will, and one could fancy our parts had been thrust upon us in a grim joke," he said. "For instance, isn't it strange that I should have a share in the rousing of Silverdale to a sense of its responsibilities? Lord, what I could make of it, if fate had but given me a fair opportunity!"

He spoke almost fiercely, but the words did not displease the girl. The forceful ring in his voice set something thrilling within her, and she knew by this time that his assertions seldom went beyond the fact.

"But you will have the opportunity, and we need you here," she said.

"No," said Winston slowly. "I am afraid not. Still, I will finish the work I see in front of me. That at least—one cannot hope for the unattainable."

Maud Barrington was sensible of a sudden chill. "Still, if one has strength and patience, is anything quite unattainable?"

Winston looked out across the prairie, and for a moment the demons of pride and ambition rioted within him. He knew there were in him the qualities that compel success, and the temptation to stretch out a daring hand and take all he longed for grew almost overmastering. Still, he also knew how strong the innate prejudices of caste and tradition are in most women of his companion's station, and she had never hidden one aspect or her character from him. It was with a smothered groan he realized that if he flung the last shred of honor aside and grasped the forbidden fruit it would turn to bitterness in his mouth.

"Yes," he said very slowly. "There is a limit which only fools would pass."

Then there was silence for a while, until, as they swept across the rise, Maud Barrington laughed as she pointed to the lights that blinked in the hollow, and Winston realized that the barrier between them stood firm again.

"Our views seldom coincide for very long, but there is something else to mention before we reach the Grange," she said. "You must have paid out a good many dollars for the plowing of your land and mine, and nobody's exchequer is inexhaustible at Silverdale. Now I want you to take a check from me."

"It is necessary that I should?"

"Of course," said the girl, with a trace of displeasure.

Winston laughed. "Then I shall be prepared to hand you my account whenever you demand it."

He did not look at his companion again, but with a tighter grip than there was any need for on the reins, sent the light wagon jolting down the slope to Silverdale Grange.



CHAPTER XV

THE UNEXPECTED

The sun beat down on the prairie, which was already losing its flush of green, but it was cool where Maud Barrington and her aunt stood in the shadow of the bluff by Silverdale Grange. The birches, tasseled now with whispering foliage, divided the homestead front the waste which would lie white and desolate under the parching heat, and that afternoon it seemed to the girl that the wall of green shut out more than the driving dust and sun-glare from the Grange, for where the trees were thinner she could see moving specks of men and horses athwart the skyline.

They had toiled in the sun-baked furrow since the first flush of crimson streaked the prairie's rim, and the chill of dusk would fall upon the grasses before their work was done. Those men who bore the burden and heat of the day were, the girl knew, helots now, but there was in them the silent vigor and something of the somberness of the land of rock and forest they came from, and a time would come when others would work for them. Winning slowly, holding grimly, they were moving on, while secure in its patrician tranquillity; Silverdale stood still, and Maud Barrington smiled curiously as she glanced down at the long white robe that clung very daintily about her and then towards her companions in the tennis field. Her apparel had cost many dollars in Montreal, and there was a joyous irresponsibility in the faces of those she watched.

"It is a little unequal, isn't it, aunt?" she said. "One feels inclined to wonder what we have done that we should have exemption from the charge laid upon the first tiller of the soil that we, and the men who are plodding through the dust there, are descended from."

Miss Barrington laughed a little as she glanced with a nod of comprehension at the distant toilers, and more gravely towards the net. Merry voices came up to her through the shadows of the trees as English lad and English maiden, lissom and picturesque in many-hued jackets and light dresses, flitted across the little square of velvet green. The men had followed the harrow and seeder a while that morning. Some of them, indeed, had for a few hours driven a team, and then left the rest to the hired hands, for the stress and sweat of effort that was to turn the wilderness into a granary was not for such as they.

"Don't you think it is all made up to those others?" she asked.

"In one sense—yes," said the girl. "Of course, one can see that all effort must have its idealistic aspect, and there may be men who find their compensation in the thrill of the fight, and the knowledge of work well done when they rest at night. Still, I fancy most of them only toil to eat, and their views are not revealed to us. We are, you see, women—and we live at Silverdale."

Her aunt smiled again. "How long is it since the plow crossed the Red River, and what is Manitoba now? How did those mile furrows come there, and who drove the road that takes the wheat out through the granite of the Superior shore? It was more than their appetites that impelled those men, my dear. Still, it is scarcely wise to expect too much when one meets them, for though one could feel it is presumptuous to forgive its deficiencies, the Berserk type of manhood is not conspicuous for its refinement."

For no apparent reason Maud Barrington evaded her aunt's gaze. "You," she said dryly, "have forgiven one of that type a good deal already, but, at least, we have never seen him when the fit was upon him."

Miss Barrington laughed. "Still, I have no doubt that, sooner or later, you will enjoy the spectacle."

Just then, a light wagon came up behind them, and when one of the hired men helped them in they swept out of the cool shade into the dust and glare of the prairie, and when some little time later, with the thud of hoofs and rattle of wheels softened by the bleaching sod, they rolled down a rise, there was spread out before them evidence of man's activity.

Acre by acre, gleaming chocolate brown against the gray and green of the prairie, the wheat loam rolled away, back to the ridge, over it, and on again. It was such a breadth of sowing as had but once, when wheat was dear, been seen at Silverdale, but still across the foreground, advancing in echelon, came lines of dusty teams, and there was a meaning in the furrows they left behind them, for they were not plowing where the wheat had been. Each wave of lustrous clods that rolled from the gleaming shares was so much rent from the virgin prairie, and a promise of what would come when man had fulfilled his mission and the wilderness would blossom. There was a wealth of food stored, little by little during ages past counting, in every yard of the crackling sod to await the time when the toiler with the sweat of the primeval curse upon his forehead should unseal it with the plow. It was also borne in upon Maud Barrington that the man who directed those energies was either altogether without discernment, or one who saw further than his fellows and had an excellent courage, when he flung his substance into the furrows while wheat was going down. Then as the hired man pulled up the wagon she saw him.

A great plow with triple shares had stopped at the end of the furrow, and the leading horses were apparently at variance with the man who, while he gave of his own strength to the uttermost, was asking too much from them. Young and indifferently broken, tortured by swarming insects, and galled by the strain of the collar, they had laid back their ears, and the wickedness of the bronco strain shone in their eyes. One rose almost upright amid a clatter of harness, its mate squealed savagely, and the man who loosed one hand from the head-stall flung out an arm. Then he and the pair whirled round together amid the trampled clods in a blurred medley of spume-flecked bodies, soil-stained jean, flung-up hoofs, and an arm that swung and smote again. Miss Barrington grew a trifle pale as she watched, but a little glow crept into her niece's eyes.

The struggle, however, ended suddenly, and hailing a man who plodded behind another team, Winston picked up his broad hat, which was trampled into shapelessness, and turned towards the wagon. There was dust and spume upon him, a rent in the blue shirt, and the knuckles of one hand dripped red, but he laughed as he said, "I did not know we had an audience, but this, you see, is necessary."

"Is it?" asked Miss Barrington, who glanced at the plowing. "When wheat is going down?"

Winston nodded. "Yes," he said. "I mean, to me; and the price of wheat is only one part of the question."

Miss Barrington stretched out her hand, though her niece said nothing at all. "Of course, but I want you to help us down. Maud has an account you have not sent in to ask you for."

Winston first turned to the two men who now stood by the idle machine. "You'll have to drive those beasts of mine as best you can, Tom, and Jake will take your team. Get them off again now. This piece of breaking has to be put through before we loose again."

Then he handed his visitors down, and Maud Barrington fancied as he walked with them to the house that the fashion in which the damaged hat hung down over his eyes would have rendered most other men ludicrous. He left them a space in his bare sitting-room, which suggested only grim utility, and Miss Barrington smiled when her niece glanced at her.

"And this is how Lance, the profligate, lives!" said she.

Maud Barrington shook her head. "No," she said. "Can you believe that this man was ever a prodigal?"

Her aunt was a trifle less astonished than she would once have been, but before she could answer Winston, who had made a trifling change in his clothing, came in.

"I can give you some green tea, though I am afraid it might be a good deal better than it is, and our crockery is not all you have been used to," he said. "You see, we have only time to think of one thing until the sowing is through."

Miss Barrington's eyes twinkled. "And then?"

"Then," said Winston, with a little laugh, "there will be prairie hay to cut, and after that the harvest coming on."

"In the meanwhile, it was business that brought me here, and I have a check with me," said Maud Barrington. "Please let us get it over first of all."

Winston sat down at a table and scribbled on a strip of paper. "That," he said gravely, "is what you owe me for the plowing."

There was a little flush in his face as he took the check the girl filled in, and both felt somewhat grateful for the entrance of a man in blue jean with the tea. It was of very indifferent quality, and he had sprinkled a good deal on the tray, but Winston felt a curious thrill as he watched the girl pour it out at the head of the bare table. Her white dress gleamed in the light of a dusty window, and the shadowy cedar boarding behind her forced up each line of the shapely figure. Again the maddening temptation took hold of him, and he wondered whether he had betrayed too much when he felt the elder lady's eyes upon him. There was a tremor in his brown fingers as he took the cup held out to him, but his voice was steady.

"You can scarcely fancy how pleasant this is," he said. "For eight years, in fact ever since I left England, no woman has ever done any of these graceful little offices for me."

Miss Barrington glanced at her niece, and both of them knew that, if the lawyer had traced Courthorne's past correctly, this could not be true. Still, there was no disbelief in the elder lady's eyes, and the girl's faith remained unshaken.

"Eight years," she said, with a little smile, "is a very long while."

"Yes," said Winston, "horribly long, and one year at Silverdale is worth them all—that is, a year like this one, which is going to be remembered by all who have sown wheat on the prairie, and that leads up to something. When I have plowed all my own holding, I shall not be content, and I want to make another bargain. Give me the use of your unbroken land, and I will find horses, seed, and men, while we will share what it yields us when the harvest is in."

The girl was astonished. This, she knew, was splendid audacity, for the man had already staked very heavily on the crop he had sown, and while the daring of it stirred her she sat silent a moment.

"I could lose nothing, but you will have to bring out a host of men, and have risked so much," she said. "Nobody but you and me and three or four others in all the province is plowing more than half his holdings."

The suggestion of comradeship set Winston's blood tingling, but it was with a little laugh he turned over the pile of papers on the table, and then took them up in turn.

"'Very little plowing has been done in the tracts of Minnesota previously alluded to. Farmers find wheat cannot be grown at present prices, and there is apparently no prospect of a rise,'" he read. "'The Dakota wheat-growers are mostly fallowing. They can't quite figure how they would get eighty cents for the dollar's worth of seeding this year. Milling very quiet in Winnipeg. No inquiries from Europe coming in, and Manitoba dealers, generally, find little demand for harrows or seeders this year. Reports from Assiniboia seem to show that the one hope this season will be mixed farming and the neglect of cereals.'"

"There is only one inference," he said. "When the demand comes, there will be nothing to meet it with."

"When it comes," said Maud Barrington quietly. "But you who believe it will stand alone."

"Almost," said Winston. "Still, there are a few much cleverer men who feel as I do. I can't give you all my reasons, or read you the sheaf of papers from the Pacific slope, London, New York, Australia, but while men lose hope, and little by little the stocks run down, the world must be fed. Just as sure as the harvest follows the sowing, it will wake up suddenly to the fact that it is hungry. They are buying cotton and scattering their money in other nation's bonds in the old country now, for they and the rest of Europe forget their necessities at times, but is it impossible to picture them finding their granaries empty and clamoring for bread?"

It was a crucial test of faith, and the man knew it, as the woman did. He stood alone, with the opinions of the multitude against him, but there was, Maud Barrington felt, a great if undefinable difference between his quiet resolution and the gambler's recklessness. Once more the boldness of his venture stirred her, and this time there was a little flash in her eyes as she bore witness to her perfect confidence.

"You shall have the land, every acre of it, to do what you like with, and I will ask no questions whether you win or lose," she said.

Then Miss Barrington glanced at him in turn. "Lance, I have a thousand dollars I want you to turn into wheat for me."

Winston's fingers trembled, and a darker hue crept into his tan. "Madam," he said, "I can take no money from you."

"You must," said the little, white-haired lady. "For your mother's sake, Lance. It is a brave thing you are doing, and you are the son of one who was my dearest friend."

Winston turned his head away, and both women wondered when he looked round again. His face seemed a trifle drawn, and his voice was strained.

"I hope," he said slowly, "it will in some degree make amends for others I have done. In the meanwhile, there are reasons why your confidence humiliates me."

Miss Barrington rose and her niece after her. "Still, I believe it is warranted, and you will remember there are two women who have trusted you, hoping for your success. And now, I fancy we have kept you too long."

Winston stood holding the door open a moment, with his head bent, and then suddenly straightened himself.

"I can at least be honest with you in this venture," he said with a curious quietness.

Nothing further was said, but when his guests drove away Winston sat still a while and then went back very grim in face to his plowing. He had passed other unpleasant moments of that kind since he came to Silverdale, and long afterwards the memory of them brought a flush to his face. The excuses he had made seemed worthless when he strove to view what he had done, and was doing, through those women's eyes.

It was dusk when he returned to the homestead, worn, out in body but more tranquil in mind, and stopped a moment in the doorway to look back on the darkening sweep of the plowing. He felt with no misgivings that his time of triumph would come, and in the meanwhile the handling of this great farm with all the aids that money could buy him was a keen joy to him; but each time he met Maud Barrington's eyes he realized the more surely that the hour of his success must also see accomplished an act of abnegation, which he wondered with a growing fear whether he could find the strength for. Then as he went in a man who cooked for his hired assistants came to meet him.

"There's a stranger inside waiting for you," he said. "Wouldn't tell me what he wanted, but sat right down as if the place was his, and helped himself without asking to your cigars. Wanted something to drink, too, and smiled at me kind of wicked when I brought him the cider."

The room was almost dark when Winston entered it, and stood still a moment staring at a man who sat, cigar in hand, quietly watching him. His appearance was curiously familiar, but Winston could not see his face until he moved forward another step or two. Then he stopped once more, and the two saying nothing looked at one another. It was Winston who spoke first, and his voice was very even.

"What do you want here?" he asked.

The other man laughed. "Isn't that a curious question when the place is mine? You don't seem overjoyed to see me come to life again."

Winston sat down and slowly lighted a cigar. "We need not go into that. I asked you what you want."

"Well," said Courthorne dryly, "it is not a great ideal. Only the means to live in a manner more befitting a gentleman than I have been able to do lately."

"You have not been prospering?" and Winston favored his companion with a slow scrutiny.

"No," and Courthorne laughed again. "You see, I could pick up a tolerable living as Lance Courthorne, but there is very little to be made at my business when you commence in new fields as an unknown man."

"Well," said Winston coldly, "I don't know that it wouldn't be better to face my trial than stay here at your mercy. So far as my inclinations go, I would sooner fight than have any further dealings with a man like you."

Courthorne shook his head. "I fixed up the thing too well, and you would be convicted. Still, we'll not go into that, and you will not find me unreasonable. A life at Silverdale would not suit me, and you know by this time that it would be difficult to sell the place, while I don't know where I could find a tenant who would farm it better than you. That being so, it wouldn't be good policy to bleed you too severely. Still, I want a thousand dollars in the meanwhile. It's mine, you see."

Winston sat still a minute. He was sensible of a fierce distrust and hatred of the man before him, but he felt he must at least see the consummation of his sowing.

"Then you shall have it on condition that you go away, and stay away, until harvest is over. After that, I will send for you and shall have more to tell you. If in the meantime you come back here, or hint that I am Winston, I will surrender to the police, or decide our differences in another fashion."

Courthorne nodded. "That is direct," he said. "One knows where he is when he deals with a man who talks as you do. Now, are you not curious as to the way I cheated both the river and the police?"

"No," said Winston grimly, "not in the least. We will talk business together when it is necessary, but I can only decline to discuss anything else with you."

Courthorne laughed. "There's nothing to be gained by pretending to misunderstand you, but it wouldn't pay me to be resentful when I'm graciously willing to let you work for me. Still, I have been inclined to wonder how you were getting on with my estimable relatives and connections. One of them has, I hear, unbent a trifle towards you, but I would like to warn you not to presume on any small courtesy shown you by the younger Miss Barrington."

Winston stood up and set his back to the door. "You heard my terms, but if you mention that lady again in connection with me, it would suit me equally well to make good all I owe you very differently."

Courthorne did not appear in any way disconcerted, but, before he could answer, a man outside opened the door.

"Here's Sergeant Stimson and one of his troopers wanting you," he said.

Winston looked at Courthorne, but the latter smiled. "The visit has nothing to do with me. It is probably accidental, but I fancy Stimson knows me, and it wouldn't be advisable for him to see us both together. Now, I wonder whether you could make it fifteen hundred dollars."

"No," said Winston. "Stay if it pleases you."

Courthorne shook his head. "I don't know that it would. You don't do it badly, Winston."

He went out by another door, almost as the grizzled sergeant came in and stood still, looking at the master of the homestead.

"I haven't seen you since I came here, Mr. Courthorne, and now you remind me of another man I once had dealings with," he said.

Winston laughed a little. "I scarcely fancy that is very civil, Sergeant."

"Well," said the prairie-rider, "there is a difference, when I look at you more closely. Let me see, I met you once or twice back there in Alberta?"

He appeared to be reflecting, but Winston was on his guard. "More frequently, I fancy, but you had nothing definite against me, and the times have changed. I would like to point that out to you civilly. Your chiefs are also on good terms with us at Silverdale, you see."

The sergeant laughed. "Well, sir, I meant no offense, and called round to requisition a horse. One of the Whitesod boys has been deciding a quarrel with a neighbor with an ax, and while I fancy they want me at once, my beast got his foot in a badger-hole."

"Tell Tom in the stables to let you have your choice," said Winston. "If you like them, there's no reason you shouldn't take some of these cigars along."

The sergeant went out, and when the beat of hoofs sank into the silence of the prairie, Winston called Courthorne in. "I have offered you no refreshment, but the best in the house is at your service," he said.

Courthorne looked at him curiously, and for the first time Winston noticed that the life he had led was telling upon his companion.

"As your guest?" he asked.

"Yes," said Winston. "I am tenant here, and, that I may owe you nothing, purpose paying you a second thousand dollars when the crop is in, as well as bank-rate interest on the value of the stock and machines and the money I have used, as shown in the documents handed me by Colonel Barrington. With wheat at its present price nobody would give you more for the land. In return, I demand the unconditional use of the farm until within three months from harvest. I have the elevator warrants for whatever wheat I raise, which will belong to me. If you do not agree, or remain here after sunrise to-morrow, I shall ride over to the outpost and make a declaration."

"Well," said Courthorne slowly, "you can consider it a deal."



CHAPTER XVI

FACING THE FLAME

Courthorne rode away next morning, and some weeks had passed when Maud Barrington came upon Winston sitting beside his mower in a sloo. He did not at first see her, for the rattle of the machines in a neighboring hollow drowned the muffled beat of hoofs, and the girl, reining her horse in, looked down on him. The man was sitting very still, which was unusual for him, hammer in his hand, gazing straight before him, as though he could see something beyond the shimmering heat that danced along the rim of the prairie.

Summer had come, and the grass, which grew scarcely ankle-deep on the great levels, was once more white and dry, but in the hollows that had held the melting snow it stood waist-high, scented with peppermint, harsh and wiry, and Winston had set out with every man he had to harvest it. Already a line of loaded wagons crawled slowly across the prairie, and men and horses moved half-seen amid the dust that whirled about another sloo. Out of it came the trampling of hoofs and the musical tinkle of steel.

Suddenly Winston looked up, and the care which was stamped upon it fled from his face when he saw the girl. The dust that lay thick upon his garments had spared her, and as she sat, patting the restless horse, with a little smile on her face which showed beneath the big white hat, something in her dainty freshness reacted upon the tired man's fancy. He had long borne the stress and the burden, and as he watched her a longing came upon him, as it had too often for his tranquillity since he had been at Silverdale, to taste, for a short space of time at least, a life of leisure and refinement. This woman who had been born to it could, it seemed to him, lift the man she trusted beyond the sordid cares of the turmoil to her own high level, and as he waited for her to speak, a fit of passion shook him. It betrayed itself only by the sudden hardening of his face.

"It is the first time I have surprised you idle. You were dreaming," she said.

Winston smiled a trifle mirthlessly. "I was, but I am afraid the fulfillment of the dreams is not for me. One is apt to be pulled up suddenly when he ventures overfar."

"We are inquisitive, you know," said Maud Barrington; "can't you tell me what they were?"

Winston did not know what impulse swayed him, and afterwards blamed himself for complying, but the girl's interest compelled him, and he showed her a little of what was in his heart.

"I fancied I saw Silverdale gorging the elevators with the choicest wheat," he said. "A new bridge flung level across the ravine where the wagons go down half-loaded to the creek; a dam turning the hollow into a lake, and big turbines driving our own flouring mill. Then there were herds of cattle fattening on the strippings of the grain that wasteful people burn, our products clamored for, east in the old country and west in British Columbia—and for a back-ground, prosperity and power, even if it was paid for with half the traditions of Silverdale. Still, you see it may all be due to the effect of the fierce sunshine on an idle man's fancy."

Maud Barrington regarded him steadily, and the smile died out of her eyes. "But," she said slowly, "is all that quite beyond realization. Could you not bring it about?"

Winston saw her quiet confidence and something of her pride. There was no avarice in this woman, but the slight dilation of the nostrils and the glow in her eyes told of ambition, and for a moment his soul was not his own.

"I could," he said, and Maud Barrington, who watched the swift straightening of his shoulders and lifting of his head, felt that he spoke no more than the truth. Then with a sudden access of bitterness, "But I never will."

"Why?" she asked, "Have you grown tired of Silverdale, or has what you pictured no charm for you?"

Winston leaned, as it were wearily, against the wheel of the mower. "I wonder if you could understand what my life has been. The crushing poverty that rendered every effort useless from the beginning, the wounds that come from using imperfect tools, and the numb hopelessness that follows repeated failure. They are tolerably hard to bear alone, but it is more difficult to make the best of them when the poorly-fed body is as worn out as the mind. To stay here would be—paradise—but a glimpse of it will probably have to suffice. Its gates are well guarded, and without are the dogs, you know."

Something in Maud Barrington thrilled in answer to the faint hoarseness in Winston's voice, and she did not resent it. She was a woman with all her sex's instinctive response to passion and emotion, though as yet the primitive impulses that stir the hearts of men had been covered if not wholly hidden from her by the thin veneer of civilization. Now, at least, she felt in touch with them, and for a moment she looked at the man with a daring that matched his own shining in her eyes.

"And you fear the angel with the sword?" she said. "There is nothing so terrible at Silverdale."

"No," said Winston. "I think it is the load I have to carry I fear the most."

For the moment Maud Barrington had flung off the bonds of conventionality. "Lance," she said, "you have proved your right to stay at Silverdale, and would not what you are doing now cover a great deal in the past?"

Winston smiled wryly. "It is the present that is difficult," he said. "Can a man be pardoned and retain the offense?"

He saw the faint bewilderment in the girl's face give place to the resentment of frankness unreturned and with a little shake of his shoulders shrank into himself. Maud Barrington, who understood it, once more put on the becoming reticence of Silverdale.

"We are getting beyond our depth, and it is very hot," she said. "You have all this hay to cut!"

Winston laughed as he bent over the mower's knife. "Yes," he said, "It is really more in my line, and I have kept you in the sun too long."

In another few moments Maud Barrington was riding across the prairie, but when the rattle of the machine rose from the sloo behind her, she laughed curiously.

"The man knew his place, but you came perilously near making a fool of yourself this morning, my dear," she said.

It was a week or two later, and very hot, when, with others of his neighbors, Winston sat in the big hall at Silverdale Grange. The windows were open wide and the smell of hot dust came in from the white waste which rolled away beneath the stars. There was also another odor in the little puffs of wind that flickered in, and far off where the arch of indigo dropped to the dusky earth, wavy lines of crimson moved along the horizon. It was then the season when fires that are lighted by means which no man knows creep up and down the waste of grass, until they put on speed and roll in a surf of flame before a sudden breeze. Still, nobody was anxious about them, for the guarding furrows that would oppose a space of dusty soil to the march of the flame had been plowed round every homestead at Silverdale.

Maud Barrington was at the piano and her voice was good, while Winston, who had known what it is to toil from red dawn to sunset without hope of more than daily food, found the simple song she had chosen chime with his mood. "All day long the reapers."

A faint staccato drumming that rose from the silent prairie throbbed through the final chords of it, and when the music ceased, swelled into the gallop of a horse. It seemed in some curious fashion portentous, and when there was a rattle and jingle outside other eyes than Winston's were turned towards the door. It swung open presently and Dane came in. There was quiet elation and some diffidence in his bronzed face as he turned to Colonel Barrington.

"I could not get away earlier from the settlement, sir, but I have great news," he said. "They have awoke to the fact that stocks are getting low in the old country. Wheat moved up at Winnipeg, and there was almost a rush to buy yesterday."

There was a sudden silence, for among those present were men who remembered the acres of good soil they had not plowed, but a little grim smile crept into their leader's face.

"It is," he said quietly, "too late for most of us. Still, we will not grudge you your good fortune, Dane. You and a few of the others owe it to Courthorne."

Every eye was on the speaker, for it had become known among his neighbors that he had sold for a fall; but Barrington could lose gracefully. Then both his niece and Dane looked at Winston with a question in their eyes.

"Yes," he said very quietly, "it is the turning of the tide."

He crossed over to Barrington, who smiled at him dryly as he said, "It is a trifle soon to admit that I was wrong."

Winston made a gesture of almost impatient deprecation. "I was wondering how far I might presume, sir. You have forward wheat to deliver?"

"I have," said Barrington, "unfortunately a good deal. You believe the advance will continue?"

"Yes," said Winston simply. "It is but the beginning, and there will be a reflux before the stream sets in. Wait a little, sir, and then telegraph your broker to cover all your contracts when the price drops again."

"I fancy it would be wiser to cut my losses now," said Barrington dryly.

Then Winston did a somewhat daring thing, for he raised his voice a trifle, in a fashion that seemed to invite the attention of the rest of the company.

"The more certain the advance seems to be, the fiercer will be the bears' last attack," he said. "They have to get from under, and will take heavy chances to force prices back. As yet they may contrive to check or turn the stream, and then every wise man who has sold down will try to cover, but no one can tell how far it may carry us, once it sets strongly in!"

The men understood, as did Colonel Barrington, that they were being warned, as it were, above their leader's head, and his niece, while resenting the slight, admitted the courage of the man. Barrington's face was sardonic, and a less resolute man would have winced under the implication as he said:

"This is, no doubt, intuition. I fancy you told us you had no dealings on the markets at Winnipeg."

Winston looked steadily at the speaker, and the girl noticed with a curious approval that he smiled.

"Perhaps it is, but I believe events will prove me right. In any case, what I had the honor of telling you and Miss Barrington was the fact," he said.

Nobody spoke, and the girl was wondering by what means the strain could be relieved, which, though few heard what Barrington said, all seemed to feel, when out of the darkness came a second beat of hoofs, and by and by a man swaying on the driving-seat of a jolting wagon swept into the light from the windows. Then, there were voices outside, and a breathless lad came in.

"A big grass fire coming right down on Courthorne's farm!" he said. "It was tolerably close when I got away."

In an instant there was commotion, and every man in Silverdale Grange was on his feet. For the most part, they took life lightly, and looked upon their farming as an attempt to combine the making of dollars with gentlemanly relaxation; but there were no laggards among them when there was perilous work to be done, and they went out to meet the fire joyously. Inside five minutes scarcely a horse remained in the stables, and the men were flying at a gallop across the dusky prairie laughing at the risk of a stumble in a deadly badger-hole. Yet, in the haste of saddling, they found time to arrange a twenty-dollar sweepstake and the allowance for weight.

Up the long rise, and down the back of it, they swept, stirrup by stirrup and neck by neck, while the roar of the hoofs reft the silence of the prairie like the roll of musketry. Behind came the wagons, lurching up the slope, and the blood surged to the brave young faces as the night wind smote them and fanned into brightness the crimson smear on the horizon. They were English lads of the stock that had furnished their nation's fighting line, and not infrequently counted no sacrifice too great that brought their colors home first on the racing turf. Still, careless to the verge of irresponsibility as they were in most affairs that did not touch their pride, the man who rode with red spurs and Dane next behind him, a clear length before the first of them, asked no better allies in what was to be done.

Then the line drew out as the pace began to tell, though the rearmost rode grimly, knowing the risks the leaders ran, and that the chance of being first to meet the fire might yet fall to them. There was not one among them who would not have killed his best horse for that honor, and for further incentive the Colonel's niece, in streaming habit, flitted in front of them. She had come up from behind them, and passed them on a rise, for Barrington disdained to breed horses for dollars alone, and there was blood well known on the English turf in the beast she rode.

By and by, a straggling birch bluff rose blackly across their way, but nobody swung wide. Swaying low while the branches smote them, they went through, the twigs crackling under foot, and here and there the red drops trickling down a flushed, scarred face, for the slanting rent of a birch bough cuts like a knife. Dim trees whirled by them, undergrowth went down, and they, were out on the dusty grass again, while, like field guns wanted at the front, the bouncing wagons went through behind. Then the fire rose higher in front of them, and when they topped the last rise the pace grew faster still. The slope they thundered down was undermined by gophers and seamed by badger-holes, but they took their chances gleefully, sparing no effort of hand and heel, for the sum of twenty dollars and the credit of being first man in. Then the smoke rolled up to them, and when eager hands drew bridle at last, a youthful voice rose breathlessly out of it:

"Stapleton a good first, but he'll go back on weight. It used to be black and orange when he was at home."

There was a ripple of hoarse laughter, a gasping cheer, and then silence, for now their play was over, and it was with the grim quietness, which is not unusual with their kind, the men of Silverdale turned towards the fire. It rolled towards the homestead, a waving crimson wall, not fast, but with remorseless persistency, out of the dusky prairie, and already the horses were plunging in the smoke of it. That, however, did not greatly concern the men, for the bare fire furrows stretched between themselves and it; but there was also another blaze inside the defenses, and, unless it was checked, nothing could save house and barns and granaries, rows of costly binders, and stock of prairie hay. They looked for a leader, and found one ready, for Winston's voice came up through the crackle of the fire:

"Some of you lead the saddle-horses back to the willows and picket them. The rest to the stables and bring out the working beasts. The plows are by the corral, and the first team that comes up is to be harnessed to each in turn. Then start in, and turn over a full-depth furrow a furlong from the fire."

There was no confusion, and already the hired men were busy with two great machines until Winston displaced two of them.

"How that fire passed the guards I don't know, but there will be time to find out later," he said to Dane. "Follow with the big breaker—it wants a strong man to keep that share in—as close as you can."

Then they were off, a man at the heads of the leading horses harnessed to the great machines, and Winston sitting very intent in the driving-seat of one, while the tough sod crackled under the rending shares. Both the man and the reins were needed when the smoke rolled down on them, but it was for a moment torn aside again, and there roared up towards the blurred arch of indigo a great rush of flame. The heat of it smote into prickliness the uncovered skin, and in spite of all that Winston could do, the beasts recoiled upon the machine behind them. Then they swung round wrenching the shares from the triplex furrow, and for a few wild minutes man and terrified beast fought for the mastery. Breathless half-strangled objurgations, the clatter of trace and swivel, and the thud of hoofs, rose muffled through the roar of the fire, for, while swaying, plunging, panting, they fought with fist and hoof, it was rolling on, and now the heat was almost insupportable. The victory, however, was to the men, and when the great machine went on again, Maud Barrington, who had watched the struggle with the wife of one of her neighbors, stood wide-eyed, half-afraid and yet thrilled in every fiber.

"It was splendid," she said. "They can't be beaten."

Her companion seemed to shiver a little. "Yes," she said, "perhaps it was, but I wish it was over. It would appeal to you differently, my dear, if you had a husband at one of those horses' heads."

For a moment Maud Barrington wondered whether it would, and then, when a red flame flickered out towards the team, felt a little chill of dread. In another second the smoke whirled about them, and she moved backward choking with her companion. The teams, however, went on, and came out, frantic with fear, on the farther side. The men who led them afterwards wondered how they kept their grip on the horses' heads. Then it was that while the machines swung round and other men ran to help, Winston, springing from the driving-seat, found Dane amid the swaying, plunging medley of beasts and men.

"If you can't find hook or clevis, cut the trace," he said. "It can't burn the plow, and the devils are out of hand now. The fire will jump these furrows, and we've got to try again."

In another minute four maddened beasts were careering across the prairie with portions of their trappings banging about them, while one man who was badly kicked sat down gray in face and gasping, and the fire rolled up to the ridge of loam, checked, and then sprang across it here and there.

"I'll take one of those lad's places," said Dane. "That fellow can't hold the breaker straight, Courthorne."

It was a minute or two later when he flung a breathless lad away from his plow, and the latter turned upon him hoarse with indignation.

"I raced Stapleton for it. Loose your hold, confound you. It's mine," he said.

Dane turned and laughed at him as he signed to one of the Ontario hired men to take the near horse's head.

"You're a plucky lad, and you've done what you could," he said. "Still, if you get in the way of a grown man now, I'll break your head for you."

He was off in another moment, crossed Winston, who had found fresh beasts, in his furrow, and had turned and doubled it before the fire that had passed the other barrier came close upon them. Once more the smoke grew blinding, and one of Dane's beasts went down.

"I'm out of action now," he said. "Try back. That team will never face it, Courthorne."

Winston's face showed very grim under the tossing flame. "They've got to. I'm going through," he said. "If the others are to stop it behind there, they must have time."

Then he and the husband of the woman who had spoken to Maud Barrington passed on with the frantic team into the smoke that was streaked with flame.

"Good Lord!" said Dane, and added more as sitting on the horse's head he turned his tingling face from the fire.

It was some minutes before he and the hired man who came up loosed the fallen horse, and led it and its fellow back towards the last defenses the rest had been raising, while the first furrows checked but did not stay the conflagration. There he presently came upon the man who had been with Winston.

"I don't know where Courthorne is," he said. "The beasts bolted with us just after we'd gone through the worst of it, and I fancy they took the plow along. Any way, I didn't see what became of them, and don't fancy anybody would have worried much about them after being trampled on by a horse in the lumbar region."

Dane saw that the man was limping and white in face, and asked no more questions. It was evident to him that Courthorne would be where he was most needed, and he did what he could with those who were adding furrow to furrow across the path of the fire. It rolled up to them roaring, stopped, flung a shower of burning filaments before it, sank and swept aloft again, while the sparks rained down upon the grass before the draught it made.

Blackened men with smoldering clothes were, however, ready, and they fought each incipient blaze with soaked grain bags, and shovels, some of them also, careless of blistered arms, with their own wet jackets. As fast as each fire was trampled out another sprang into life, but the parent blaze that fed them sank and died, and at last there was a hoarse cheer. They had won, and the fire they had beaten passed on divided across the prairie, leaving the homestead unscathed between.

Then they turned to look for their leader, and did not find him until a lad came up to Dane.

"Courthorne's back by the second furrows, and I fancy he's badly hurt," he said. "He didn't appear to know me, and his head seems all kicked in."

It was not apparent how the news went round, but in a few more minutes Dane was kneeling beside a limp, blackened object stretched amid the grass, and while his comrades clustered behind her, Maud Barrington bent over him. Her voice was breathless as she asked, "You don't believe him dead?"

Somebody had brought a lantern, and Dane felt inclined to gasp when he saw the girl's white face, but what she felt was not his business then.

"He's of a kind that is very hard to kill. Hold that lantern so I can see him," he said.

The rest waited silent, glad that there was somebody to take a lead, and in a few moments Dane looked round again.

"Ride in to the settlement, Stapleton, and bring that Doctor fellow out if you bring him by the neck. Stop just a moment. You don't know where you're to bring him to."

"Here, of course," said the lad, breaking into a run.

"Wait," and Dane's voice stopped him. "Now, I don't fancy that would do. It seems to me that this is a case in which a woman to look after him would be necessary."

Then, before any of the married men or their wives who had followed them could make an offer, Maud Barrington touched his shoulder.

"He is coming to the Grange," she said.

Dane nodded, signed to Stapleton, then spoke quickly to the men about him and turned to Maud Barrington.

"Ride on at a gallop and get everything ready. I'll see he comes to no harm," he said.

The girl felt curiously grateful as she rode out with her companion, and Dane, who laid Winston carefully in a wagon, drew two of the other men aside when it rolled away towards the Grange.

"There is something to be looked into. Did you notice anything unusual about the affair?" he said.

"Since you asked me, I did," said one of the men. "I, however, scarcely cared to mention it until I had time for reflection, but while I fancy the regulation guards would have checked the fire on the boundaries without our help, I don't quite see how one started in the hollow inside them."

"Exactly," said Dane, very dryly. "Well, we have got to discover it, and the more quickly we do it the better. I fancy, however, that the question who started it is what we have to consider."

The men looked at one another, and the third of them nodded.

"I fancy it comes to that—though it is horribly unpleasant to admit it," he said.



CHAPTER XVII

MAUD BARRINGTON IS MERCILESS

Dane overtook the wagon close by the birch bluff at Silverdale Grange. It was late then, but there were lights in the windows that blinked beyond the trees, and, when the wagon stopped, Barrington stood in the entrance with one or two of his hired men. Accidents are not infrequent on the prairie, where surgical assistance is not always available, and there was a shutter ready on the ground beside him, for the Colonel had seen the field hospital in operation.

"Unhook the tailboard," he said sharply. "Two of you pick up the shutter. Four more here. Now, arms about his shoulders, hips, and knees. Lift and lower—step off with right foot, leading bearer, with your left in the rear!"

It was done in a few moments, and when the bearers passed into the big hall that rang with their shuffling steps, Maud Barrington shivered as she waited with her aunt in an inner room. That trampling was horribly suggestive, and she had seen but little of sickness and grievous wounds. Still, the fact scarcely accounted for the painful throbbing of her heart, and the dizziness that came upon her. Then the bearers came in, panting, with Barrington and Dane behind them, and the girl was grateful to her aunt, who laid a hand upon her arm when she saw the singed head, and blackened face that was smeared with a ruddier tint, upon the shutter.

"Lower!" said Colonel Barrington. "Lift, as I told you," and the huddled object was laid upon the bed. Then there was silence until the impassive voice rose again.

"We shall not want you, Maud. Dane, you and I will get these burnt things off him."

The girl went out, and while she stood, feeling curiously chilly in an adjoining room, Barrington bent over his patient.

"Well put together!" he said thoughtfully. "Most of his people were lighter in the frame. Well, we can only oil the burns, and get a cold compress about his head. All intact, so far as I can see, and I fancy he'd pull through a good deal more than has happened to him. I am obliged for your assistance, but I need not keep you."

The men withdrew, and when a rattle of wheels rose from the prairie, Maud Barrington waylaid her uncle in the hall. Her fingers were trembling, and, though her voice was steady, the man glanced at her curiously as she asked, "How is he?"

"One can scarcely form an opinion yet," he said slowly. "He is burned here and there, and his head is badly cut, but it is the concussion that troubles me. A frantic horse kicks tolerably hard you know, but I shall be able to tell you more when the doctor comes to-morrow. In the meanwhile you had better rest, though you could look in and see if your aunt wants anything in an hour or two."

Maud Barrington passed an hour in horrible impatience, and then stole quietly into the sick-room. The windows were open wide, and the shaded lamp burned unsteadily as the cool night breeze flowed in. Its dim light just touched the man who lay motionless with a bandage round his head, and the drawn pallor of his face once more sent a shiver through the girl. Then Miss Barrington rose and lifted a warning hand.

"Quite unconscious still," she said softly. "I fancy he was knocked down by one of the horses and trampled on, but your uncle has hopes of him. He has evidently led a healthy life."

The girl was a little less serene than usual then, and drew back into the shadow.

"Yes," she said. "We did not think so once."

Miss Barrington smiled curiously. "Are you very much astonished, Maud? Still, there is nothing you can do for me, and we shall want you to-morrow."

Realizing that there was no need for her, the girl went out, and when the door closed behind her the little white-haired lady bent down and gazed at her patient long and steadily. Then she shook her head, and moved back to the seat she had risen from with perplexity in her face.

In the meanwhile, Maud Barrington sat by the open window in her room staring out into the night. There was a whispering in the birch bluff, and the murmuring of leagues of grasses rose from the prairie that stretched away beyond it. Still, though the wind fanned her throbbing forehead with a pleasant coolness, the nocturnal harmonies awoke no response in her. Sleep was out of the question, for her brain was in a whirl of vague sensations, through which fear came uppermost every now and then. Why anything which could befall this man who had come out of the obscurity, and was, he had told her, to go back into it again, should disturb her, Maud Barrington did not know; but there was no disguising the fact that she would feel his loss grievously, as others at Silverdale would do. Then with a little tremor she wondered whether they must lose him, and rising stood tensely still, listening for any sound from the room where the sick man lay.

There was nothing but the sighing of the grasses outside and the murmur of the birches in the bluff, until the doleful howl of a coyote stole faintly out of the night. Again the beast sent its cry out upon the wind, and the girl trembled as she listened. The unearthly wail seemed charged with augury, and every nerve in her thrilled.

Then she sank down into her chair again, and sat still, hoping, listening, fearing, and wondering when the day would come, until at last her eyes grew heavy, and it was with a start she roused herself when a rattle of wheels came up out of the prairie in the early morning. Then a spume-flecked team swept up to the house, a door swung open, there was a murmur of voices and a sound of feet that moved softly in the hall, after which, for what seemed an interminable time, silence reigned again. At last, when the stealthy patter of feet recommenced, the girl slipped down the stairway and came upon Barrington. Still, she could not ask the question that was trembling on her lips.

"Is there anything I can do?" she said.

Barrington shook his head. "Not now! The doctor is here, and does not seem very anxious about him. The concussion is not apparently serious, and his other injuries will not trouble him much."

Maud Barrington said nothing and turned away, sensible of a great relief, while her aunt entering her room an hour later found her lying fast asleep, but still dressed as she had last seen her. Then, being a discerning woman, she went out softly with a curious smile, and did not at any time mention what she had seen.

It was that evening, and Barrington had departed suddenly on business to Winnipeg, when Dane rode up to the Grange. He asked for Miss Barrington and her niece, and when he heard that his comrade was recovering sensibility, sat down looking very grave.

"I have something to tell you, but Courthorne must not know until he is better, while I'm not sure that we need tell him then," he said. "In the meanwhile, I am also inclined to fancy it would be better kept from Colonel Barrington on his return. It is the first time anything of the kind has happened at Silverdale, and it would hurt him horribly, which decided us to come first to you."

"You must be more concise," said Miss Barrington; quietly, and Dane trifled with the hat in his hand.

"It is," he said, "a most unpleasant thing, and is known to three men only, of whom I am one. We have also arranged that nobody else will chance upon what we have discovered. You see, Ferris is unfortunately connected with you, and his people have had trouble enough already."

"Ferris?" said Maud Barrington, with a sudden hardening of her face. "You surely don't mean—"

Dane nodded. "Yes," he said reluctantly. "I'm afraid I do. Now, if you will listen to me for a minute or two."

He told his story with a grim, convincing quietness, and the blood crept into the girl's cheeks as she followed his discoveries step by step. Glancing at her aunt, she saw that there was horror as well as belief in the gentle lady's face.

"Then," she said, with cold incisiveness, "Ferris cannot stay here, and he shall be punished."

"No," said Dane. "We have no room for a lad of his disposition at Silverdale—but I'm very uncertain in regard to the rest. You see, it couldn't be done without attracting attention—and I have the honor of knowing his mother. You will remember how she lost another son. That is why I did not tell Colonel Barrington. He is a trifle—precipitate—occasionally."

Miss Barrington glanced at him gratefully. "You have done wisely," she said. "Ethel Ferris has borne enough, and she has never been the same since the horrible night they brought Frank home, for she knew how he came by his death, though the coroner brought it in misadventure. I also fancy my brother would be implacable in a case like this, though how far I am warranted in keeping the facts from him I do not know."

Dane nodded gravely. "We leave that to you. You will, however, remember what happened once before. We cannot go through what we did then again."

Miss Barrington recalled the formal court-martial that had once been held in the hall of the Grange, when every man in the settlement had been summoned to attend, for there were offenses in regard to which her brother was inflexible. When it was over and the disgraced man went forth an outcast, a full account of the proceedings had been forwarded to those at home who had hoped for much from him.

"No," she said. "For the sake of the woman who sent him here we must stop short of that."

Then Maud Barrington looked at them both. "There is one person you do not seem to consider at all, and that is the man who lies here in peril through Ferris's fault," she said. "Is there nothing due to him?"

Dane noticed the sternness in her eyes, and glanced as if for support towards Miss Barrington. "I fancy he would be the last to claim it if he knew what we do. Still, in the meanwhile, I leave the affair to your aunt and you. We would like to have your views before doing anything further."

He rose as he spoke, and when he had gone out, Maud Barrington sat down at a writing-table. "Aunt," she said quietly, "I will ask Ferris to come here at once."

It was next day when Ferris came, evidently ill at ease, though he greeted Miss Barrington with elaborate courtesy, and would have done the same with her niece, but the girl turned from him with visible disdain.

"Sit down," she said coldly. "Colonel Barrington is away, but his sister will take his place, and after him I have the largest stake in the welfare of Silverdale. Now, a story has come to our ears which if it had not been substantiated would have appeared incredible. Shall Miss Barrington tell it you?"

Ferris, who was a very young man, flushed, but the color faded and left his cheeks a trifle gray. He was not a very prepossessing lad, for it requires a better physique than he was endowed with to bear the stamp of viciousness that is usually most noticeable on the feeble, but he was distinguished by a trace of arrogance that not infrequently served him as well as resolution.

"If it would not inconvenience Miss Barrington, it would help me to understand a good deal I can find no meaning for now," he said.

The elder lady's face grew sterner, and very quietly but remorselessly she set forth his offense, until no one who heard the tale could have doubted the origin of the fire.

"I should have been better pleased, had you, if only when you saw we knew everything, appeared willing to confess your fault and make amends," she said.

Ferris laughed as ironically as he dared under the eyes which had lost their gentleness. "You will pardon me for telling you that I have no intention of admitting it now. That you should be so readily prejudiced against me is not gratifying, but, you see, nobody could take any steps without positive proof of the story, and my word is at least as credible as that of the interloper who told it you."

Maud Barrington raised her head suddenly, and looked at him with a curious light in her eyes, but the elder lady made a little gesture of deprecation.

"Mr. Courthorne has told us nothing," she said. "Still, three gentlemen whose worth is known at Silverdale are willing to certify every point of it. If we lay the affair before Colonel Barrington, you will have an opportunity of standing face to face with them."

The lad's assurance, which, so far and no further, did duty for courage, deserted him. He was evidently not prepared to be made the subject of another court-martial, and the hand he laid on the table in front of him trembled a little.

"Madam," he said hoarsely, "if I admit everything what will you do?"

"Nothing," said Maud Barrington coldly. "On condition that within a month you leave Silverdale."

Ferris stared at her. "You can't mean that. You see, I'm fond of farming, and nobody would give me what the place cost me. I couldn't live among the outside settler fellows."

The girl smiled coldly. "I mean exactly what you heard, and, if you do not enlighten them, the settlers would probably not object to you. Your farm will be taken over at what you gave for it."

Ferris stood up. "I am going to make a last appeal. Silverdale's the only place fit for a gentleman to live in in Canada, and I want to stay here. You don't know what it would cost me to go away, and I'd do anything for reparation—send a big check to a Winnipeg hospital and starve myself to make up for it if that would content you. Only, don't send me away."

His tone grew almost abject as he proceeded, and while Miss Barrington's eyes softened, her niece's heart grew harder because of it, as she remembered that he had brought a strong man down.

"No," she said dryly. "That would punish your mother and sisters from whom you would cajole the money. You can decide between leaving Silverdale, and having the story, and the proof of it, put into the hands of Colonel Barrington."

She sat near an open window regarding him with quiet scorn, and the light that shone upon her struck a sparkle from her hair and set the rounded cheek and neck gleaming like ivory. The severity of her pose became her, and the lad's callow desire that had driven him to his ruin stirred him to impotent rage in his desperation. There were gray patches in his cheeks, and his voice was strained and hoarse.

"You have no mercy on me because I struck at him," he said. "The one thing I shall always be sorry for is that I failed, and I would go away with pleasure if the horse had trampled the life out of him. Well, there was a time when you could have made what you wished of me, and now, at least, I shall not see the blackleg you have showered your favors on drag you down to the mire he came from."

Maud Barrington's face had grown very colorless, but she said nothing, and her aunt rose and raised the hammer of a gong.

"Ferris," she said. "Do you wish to be led out by the hired men?"

The lad laughed, and the hideous merriment set the white-haired lady's nerves on edge. "Oh, I am going now, but, for once, let us be honest. It was for her I did it, and if it had been any other man I had injured, she would have forgiven me."

Then with an ironical farewell he swung out of the room, and the two women exchanged glances when the door closed noisily behind him. Miss Barrington was flushed with anger, but her niece's face was paler than usual.

"Are there men like him?" she said.

Miss Barrington shook off her anger, and rising, laid a gentle hand on her niece's shoulder. "Very few, I hope," she said. "Still, it would be better if we sent word to Dane. You would not care for that tale to spread?"

For a moment the girl's cheeks flamed, then she rose quietly and crossed the room.

"No," she said, and her aunt stood still, apparently lost in contemplation, after the door swung softly to. Then she sat down at the writing table. There was very little in the note, but an hour after Dane received it that night, a wagon drew up outside Ferris's farm. Two men went quietly in and found the owner of the homestead sitting with a sheaf of papers scattered about the table in front of him.

"Come back to-morrow. I can't be worried now," he said. "Well, why the devil don't you go?"

Dane laid a hand on his shoulder. "We are waiting for you. You are coming with us!"

Ferris turned, and stared at them. "Where to?"

"To the railroad," Dane said dryly. "After that you can go just where it pleases you. Now, there's no use, whatever, making a fuss, and every care will be taken of your property until you can arrange to dispose of it. Hadn't you better get ready?"

The grim quietness of the voice was sufficient, and Ferris, who saw that force would be used if it was necessary, decided that it was scarcely likely his hired men would support him.

"I might have expected it!" he said. "Of course, it was imprudent to speak the truth to our leader's niece. You know what I have done?"

"I know what you did the night Courthorne nearly lost his life," said Dane. "One would have fancied that would have contented you."

"Well," said Ferris, "if you would like to hear of a more serious offense, I'll oblige you."

Dane's finger closed on his arm. "If you attempt to tell me, I'll break your head for you."

Next moment Ferris was lifted from his chair, and in less than ten minutes Dane thrust him into the wagon, where another man, who passed a hand through his arm, sat beside him. It was a very long drive to the railroad, but few words were exchanged during it, and when they reached the settlement one of Ferris's companions mounted guard outside the hotel he found accommodation in, until the Montreal express crawled up above the rim of the prairie. Then both went with him to the station, and as the long cars rolled in Dane turned quietly to the lad.

"Now, I am quite aware that we are incurring some responsibility, so you need not waste your breath," he said. "There are, however, lawyers in Winnipeg, if you fancy it is advisable to make use of them, and you know where I and Macdonald are, if you want us. In the meanwhile, your farm will be run better than ever if was in your hands, until you dispose of it. That is all I have to tell you, except that if any undesirable version of the affair gets about, Courthorne or I will assuredly find you."

Then there was a scream of the whistle, and the train rolled away with Ferris standing white with fury on the platform of a car.

In the meanwhile Maud Barrington spent a sleepless night. Ferris's taunt had reached its mark, and she realized with confusion that it was the truth he spoke. The fact that brought the blood to her cheeks would no longer be hidden, and she knew it was a longing to punish the lad who had struck down the man she loved that had led to her insistence on the former leaving Silverdale. It was a difficult admission, but she made it that night. The outcast who had stepped out of the obscurity, and into her peaceful life, had shown himself a man that any woman might be proud to mate with, and, though he had said very little, and now and then his words were bitter, she knew that he loved her. Whatever he had done, and she felt against all the teachings of her reason that it had not been evil, he had shown himself the equal of the best at Silverdale, and she laughed as she wondered which of the men there she could set in the balance against him. Then she shivered a little, remembering that there was a barrier whose extent he alone realized between them, and wondered vaguely what the future would bring.

It was a week or two before Winston was on his feet again, and Maud Barrington was one of the first to greet him when he walked feebly into the hall. She had, however, decided on the line of conduct that would be most fitting, and there was no hint of more than neighborly kindliness in her tone. They had spoken about various trifles when Winston turned to her.

"You and Miss Barrington have taken such good care of me that if I consulted my inclinations I would linger in convalescence a long while," he said. "Still, I must make an effort to get away to-morrow."

"We cannot take the responsibility of letting you go under a week yet," said Maud Barrington. "Have you anything especially important to do?"

"Yes," said Winston, and the girl understood the grimness of his face. "I have."

"It concerns the fire?"

Winston looked at her curiously. "I would sooner you did not ask me that question, Miss Barrington."

"I scarcely fancy it is necessary," said the girl, with a little smile. "Still, I have something to tell you, and a favor to ask. Ferris has left Silverdale, and you must never make any attempt to discover what caused the fire."

"You know?"

"Yes," said Maud Barrington. "Dane, Macdonald, and Hassal know, too, but you will not ask them, and if you did they would not tell you."

"I can refuse you nothing," said Winston with a laugh, though his voice betrayed him. "Still, I want a quid pro quo. Wait until Ferris's farm is in the sale list and then take it with the growing crop."

"I could not. There are reasons," said the girl.

Winston gazed at her steadily, and a little color crept to his forehead, but he answered unconcernedly, "They can be over-ridden. It may be the last favor I shall ever ask of you."

"No," said Maud Barrington. "Anything else you wish, but not that. You must believe, without wondering why, that it is out of the question!"

Winston yielded with a curious little smile. "Well," he said, "we will let it drop. I ask no questions. You have accepted so much already without understanding it."



CHAPTER XVIII

WITH THE STREAM

It was Winston's last afternoon at the Grange, and almost unpleasantly hot, while the man whose vigor had not as yet returned to him was content to lounge in the big window-seat listlessly watching his companion. He had borne the strain of effort long, and the time of his convalescence amid the tranquillity of Silverdale Grange had with the gracious kindliness of Miss Barrington and her niece been a revelation to him. There were moments when it brought him bitterness and self-reproach, but these were usually brief, and he made the most of what he knew might never be his again, telling himself that it would at least be something to look back upon.

Maud Barrington sat close by, glancing through the letters a mounted man had brought in, and the fact that his presence put no restraint on her curiously pleased the man. At last, however, she opened a paper and passed it across to him.

"You have been very patient, but no doubt you will find something that will atone for my silence there," she said.

Winston turned over the journal, and then smiled at her. "Is there anything of moment in your letters?"

"No," said the girl, with a little laugh. "I scarcely think there is—a garden party, a big reception, the visit of a high official, and a description of the latest hat. Still, you know, that is supposed to be enough for us."

"Then I wonder whether you will find this more interesting: 'The bears made a determined rally yesterday, and wheat moved back again. There was later in the day a rush to sell, and prices now stand at almost two cents below their lowest level.'"

"Yes," said Maud Barrington, noticing the sudden intentness of his pallid face. "I do. It is serious news for you?"

"And for you! You see where I have led you. Ill or well, I must start for Winnipeg to-morrow."

Maud Barrington smiled curiously. "You and I and a handful of others stand alone, but I told you I would not blame you whether we won or lost. Do you know that I am grateful for the glimpses of the realities of life that you have given me?"

Winston felt his pulses throb faster, for the girl's unabated confidence stirred him, but he looked at her gravely. "I wonder if you realize what you have given me in return? Life as I had seen it was very grim and bare—and now I know what, with a little help, it is possible to make of it."

"With a little help?" said Maud Barrington.

Winston nodded, and his face which had grown almost wistful hardened. "Those who strive in the pit are apt to grow blind to the best—the sweetness and order, and all the little graces that mean so much. Even if their eyes are opened, it is usually too late. You see, they lose touch with all that lies beyond the struggle, and without some one to lead them they cannot get back to it. Still, if I talk in this fashion you will laugh at me, but every one has his weakness now and then—and no doubt I shall make up for it at Winnipeg to-morrow. One can not afford to be fanciful when wheat is two cents down."

Maud Barrington was not astonished. Tireless in his activities and, more curious still, almost ascetic in his mode of life, the man had already given her glimpses of his inner self and the vague longings that came upon him. He never asked her pity, but she found something pathetic in his attitude, for it seemed he knew that the stress and the turmoil alone could be his. Why this was so she did not know, but it was with a confidence that could not be shaken now she felt it was through no fault of his. His last words, however, showed her that the mask was on again.

"I scarcely fancy you are well enough, but if you must go, I wonder whether you would do a good turn to Alfreton?" she said. "The lad has been speculating—and he seems anxious lately."

"It is natural that they should all bring their troubles to you."

Maud Barrington laughed. "I, however, generally pass them on to you."

A trace of color crept into the man's face, and his voice was a trifle hoarse as he said, "Do you know that I would ask nothing better than to take every care you had, and bear it for you?"

"Still," said the girl, with a little smile, "that is very evidently out of the question."

Winston rose, and she saw that one hand was closed as he looked down upon her. Then he turned and stared out at the prairie, but there was something very significant in the rigidity of his attitude, and his face seemed to have grown suddenly careworn when he glanced back at her.

"Of course," he said quietly. "You see, I have been ill, and a little off my balance lately. That accounts for erratic speeches, though I meant it all. Colonel Barrington is still in Winnipeg?"

"Yes," said the girl, who was not convinced by the explanation, very quietly. "I am a little anxious about him, too. He sold wheat forward, and I gather from his last letter has not bought it yet. Now, as Alfreton is driving in to-morrow, he could take you."

Winston was grateful to her, and still more to Miss Barrington, who came in just then, while he did not see the girl again before he departed with Alfreton on the morrow. When they had left Silverdale a league behind, the trail dipped steeply amid straggling birches to a bridge which spanned the creek in a hollow, and Winston glanced up at the winding ascent thoughtfully.

"It has struck me that going round by this place puts another six miles on to your journey to the railroad, and a double team could not pull a big load up," he said.

The lad nodded. "The creek is a condemned nuisance. We have either to load light when we are hauling grain in, and then pitch half the bags off at the bottom and come back for them—while you know one man can't put up many four-bushel bags—or keep a man and horses at the ravine until we're through."

Winston laughed. "Now, I wonder whether you ever figured how much those little things put up the price of your wheat."

"This is the only practicable way down," said the lad. "You could scarcely climb up one side where the ravine's narrow abreast of Silverdale."

"Drive round. I want to see it," said Winston. "Call at Rushforth's for a spool of binder twine."

Half an hour later Alfreton pulled the wagon up amid the birches on the edge of the ravine, which just there sloped steep as a railway cutting, and not very much broader, to the creek. Winston gazed at it, and then handed the twine to the hired man.

"Take that with you, Charley, and get down," he said. "If you strip your boots off you can wade through the creek."

"I don't know that I want to," said the man.

"Well," said Winston, "it would please me if you did, as well as cool your feet. Then you could climb up, and hold that twine down on the other side."

The man grinned, and, though Alfreton remembered that he was not usually so tractable with him, proceeded to do Winston's bidding. When he came back there was a twinkle of comprehension in his eyes, and Winston, who cut off the length of twine, smiled at Alfreton.

"It is," he said dryly, "only a little idea of mine."

They drove on, and reaching Winnipeg next day, went straight to Graham the wheat-broker's offices. He kept them waiting some time, and in the meanwhile men with intent faces passed hastily in and out through the outer office. Some of them had telegrams or bundles of papers in their hands, and the eyes of all were eager. The corridor rang with footsteps, the murmur of voices seemed to vibrate through the great building, while it seemed to Alfreton there was a suggestion of strain and expectancy in all he heard and saw. Winston, however, sat gravely still, though the lad noticed that his eyes were keener than usual, for the muffled roar of the city, patter of messengers' feet, ceaseless tinkle of telephone call bells, and whir of the elevators, each packed with human freight, all stirred him. Hitherto he had grappled with nature, but now he was to test his judgment against the keenest wits of the cities, and stand or fall by it, in the struggle that was to be waged over the older nations' food.

At last, however, a clerk signed to them from a doorway, and they found Graham sitting before a littered table. A man sat opposite him with the telephone receiver in his hand.

"Sorry to keep you, but I've both hands full just now. Every man in this city is thinking wheat," he said. "Has he word from Chicago, Thomson?"

"Yes," said the clerk. "Bears lost hold this morning. General buying!"

Just then the door swung open and a breathless man came in. "Guess I scared that clerk of yours who wanted to turn me off," he said. "Heard what Chicago's doing? Well, you've got to buy for me now. They're going to send her right up into the sky, and it's 'bout time I got out before the bulls trample the life out of me."

"Quite sure you can't wait until to-morrow?" asked Graham.

The man shook his head. "No, sir. When I've been selling all along the line! Send off right away, and tell your man on the market to cover every blame sale for me."

Graham signed to the clerk, and as the telephone bell tinkled a lad brought in a message. The broker opened it. "New York lost advance and recovered it twice in the first hour," he read. "At present a point or two better. Steady buying in Liverpool."

"That," said the other man, "is quite enough for me. Let me have the contracts as soon as they're ready."

He went out, and Graham turned to Winston. "There's half-a-dozen more of them outside," he said. "Do you buy or sell?"

Winston laughed. "I want to know which a wise man would do."

"Well," said Graham, "I can't tell you. The bulls rushed wheat up as I wired you, but the other folks got their claws in and worried it down again. Wheat's anywhere and nowhere all the time, and I'm advising nobody just now. No doubt you've formed your own opinion."

Winston nodded. "It's the last of the grapple, and the bears aren't quite beaten yet, but any time the next week or two the decisive turn will come. Then, if they haven't got out, there'll be very little left of them."

"You seem tolerably sure of the thing. Got plenty of confidence in the bulls?"

Winston smiled. "I fancy I know how Western wheat was sown this year better than any statistician of the ring, and it's not the bulls I'm counting on, but those millions of hungry folks in the old country. It's not New York or Chicago, but Liverpool the spark is coming from."

"Well," said Graham, "that's my notion, too, but I've no time for anybody who hasn't grist for me just now. Still, I'd be glad to come round and take you home to supper if you haven't the prejudice, which is not unknown at Silverdale, against eating with a man who makes his dollars on the market and didn't get them given him."

Winston laughed, and held up a lean brown hand. "All I ever had until less than a year ago, I earned with that. I'll be ready for you."

He went out with Alfreton, and noticed that the lad ate little at lunch. When the meal was over, he glanced at him with a smile through the cigar smoke.

"I think it would do you good to take me into your confidence," he said.

"Well," said Alfreton, "it would be a relief to talk, and I feel I could trust you. Still, it's only fair to tell you I didn't at the beginning. I was an opinionated ass, you see."

Winston laughed. "I don't mind in the least, and we have most of us felt that way."

"Well," said the lad, "I was a little short of funds, and proud of myself, and when everybody seemed certain that wheat was going down forever, I thought I saw my chance of making a little. Now I've more wheat than I care to think of to deliver, the market's against me. If it stiffens any further, it will break me; and that's not all, you see. Things have gone tolerably badly with the folks at home, and I fancy it took a good deal of what should have been the girls' portion to start me at Silverdale."

"Then," said Winston, "it's no use trying to show you how foolish you've been. That is the usual thing, and it's easy; but what the man in the hole wants to know is the means of getting out again."

Alfreton smiled ruefully. "I'm tolerably far in. I could just cover at to-day's prices if I pledged my crop, but it would leave me nothing to go on with, and the next advance would swamp the farm."

"Well," said Winston quietly, "don't buy to-day. There's going to be an advance that will take folks' breath away, but the time's not quite ripe yet. You'll see prices knocked back a little the next day or two, and then you will cover your sales to the last bushel."

"But are you sure?" asked the lad, a trifle hoarsely. "You see, if you're mistaken, it will mean ruin to me."

Winston laid his hand on his shoulder. "If I am wrong, I'll make your losses good."

Nothing more was said on that subject, but Alfreton's face grew anxious once more as they went up and down the city. Everybody was talking wheat, which was not astonishing, for that city, and the two great provinces to the west of it, lived by the trade in grain, and before the afternoon had passed they learned that there had been a persistent advance. The lad's uneasiness showed itself, but when they went back to the hotel about the supper hour Winston smiled at him.

"You're feeling sick?" he said. "Still, I don't fancy you need worry."

Then Graham appeared and claimed him, and it was next morning when he saw Alfreton again. He was breakfasting with Colonel Barrington and Dane, and Winston noticed that the older man did not appear to have much appetite. When the meal was finished he drew him aside.

"You have covered your sales, sir?" he asked.

"No, sir," said Barrington. "I have not."

"Then I wonder whether it would be presumption if I asked you a question?"

Barrington looked at him steadily. "To be frank, I fancy it would be better if you did not. I have, of course, only my own folly to blame for believing I could equal your natural aptitude for this risky amusement which I had, and still have, objections to. I was, however, in need of money, and seeing your success, yielded to the temptation. I am not laying any of the responsibility on you, but am not inclined to listen to more of your suggestions."

Winston met his gaze without embarrassment. "I am sorry you have been unfortunate, sir."

Just then Dane joined them. "I sat up late last night in the hope of seeing you," he said. "Now, I don't know what to make of the market, but there were one or two fellows who would have bought my estimated crop from me at a figure which would have about covered working expenses. Some of the others who did not know you were coming in, put their affairs in my hands too."

"Sell nothing," said Winston quietly.

It was an hour later when a messenger from Graham found them in the smoking-room, and Colonel Barrington smiled dryly as he tore up the envelope handed him.

"'Market opened with sellers prevailing. Chicago flat!'" he read.

Dane glanced at Winston somewhat ruefully, but the latter's eyes were fixed on Colonel Barrington.

"If I had anything to cover I should still wait," he said.

"That," said Dane, "is not exactly good news to me."

"Our turn will come," said Winston gravely.

That day, and during several which followed it, wheat moved down, and Dane said nothing to Winston, about what he felt, though his face grew grimmer as the time went on. Barrington was quietly impassive when they met him, while Alfreton, who saw a way out of his difficulties, was hard to restrain. Winston long afterwards remembered that horrible suspense, but he showed no sign of what he was enduring then, and was only a trifle quieter than usual when he and Alfreton entered Graham's office one morning. It was busier than ever, while the men who hastened in and out seemed to reveal by attitude and voice that they felt something was going to happen.

"In sellers' favor!" said the broker. "Everybody with a few dollars is hammering prices one way or the other. Nothing but wheat to be heard of in this city. Well, we'll simmer down when the turn comes, and though I'm piling up dollars, I'll be thankful. Hallo, Thomson, anything going on now?"

"Chicago buying," said the clerk. "Now it's Liverpool! Sellers holding off. Wanting a two-eighths more the cental."

The telephone bell tinkled again, and there was a trace of excitement in the face of the man who answered it. "Walthew has got news ahead of us," he said. "Chicago bears caved in. Buying orders from Liverpool broke them. Got it there strong."

Winston tapped Alfreton's shoulder. "Now is the time. Tell him to buy," he said. "We'll wait outside until you've put this deal through, Graham."

It was twenty minutes before Graham came out to them. "I'll let you have your contracts, Mr. Alfreton, and my man on the market just fixed them in time," he said. "They're up a penny on the cental in Liverpool now, and nobody will sell, while here in Winnipeg they're falling over each other to buy. Never had such a circus since the trade began."

Alfreton, who seemed to quiver, turned to his companion, and then forgot what he had to tell him. Winston had straightened himself, and his eyes were shining, while the lad was puzzled by his face. Still, save for the little tremor in it his voice was very quiet.

"It has come at last," he said. "Two farms would not have covered your losses, Alfreton, if you had waited until to-morrow. Have supper with us, Graham—if you like it, lakes of champagne."

"I want my head, but I'll come," said Graham, with a curious smile. "I don't know that it wouldn't pay me to hire yours just now."

Then Winston turned suddenly, and running down the stairway shook the man awaiting him by the arm.

"The flood's with us now," he said. "Find Colonel Barrington, and make him cover everything before he's ruined. Dane, you and I, and a few others, will see the dollars rolling into Silverdale."

Dane found Barrington, who listened with a grim smile to what he had to tell him.

"The words are yours, Dane, but that is all," he said. "Wheat will go down again, and I do not know that I am grateful to Courthorne."

Dane dare urge nothing further, and spent the rest of that day wandering up and down the city, in a state of blissful content, with Alfreton and Winston. One of them had turned his losses into a small profit, and the other two, who had, hoping almost against hope, sown when others had feared to plow, saw that the harvest would repay them beyond their wildest expectations. They heard nothing but predictions of higher prices everywhere, and the busy city seemed to throb with exultation. The turn had come, and there was hope for the vast wheat lands it throve upon.