Masters of the Wheat-Lands. Harold Bindloss

more than we have; but isn’t that in one way their misfortune? Is it what folks want, or what they can do, that makes them of use to anybody else?”

      There was a hard truth in her suggestion, but Hawtrey, who seldom occupied himself with matters of that kind, smiled.

      “Oh,” he said, “I don’t know; but, after all, it wouldn’t be worth while for us to raise wheat here unless there were folks back East to eat it, and, if some of them only eat in the shape of dainty cakes, that doesn’t affect the question. Anyway, there will be but another dance or two, and I was wondering whether I could drive you home; I’ve got Wyllard’s Ontario sleigh.”

      Sally glanced at him rather sharply. She had half-expected this offer, and it is possible would have judiciously led him up to it if he had not made it. Now, as she saw that he really wished to drive her home, she was glad that she had not deliberately encouraged the invitation.

      “Yes,” she answered softly, “I think you could.”

      “Then,” said Hawtrey, “if you’ll wait ten minutes I’ll be back with the team.”

CHAPTER II

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SALLY TAKES CHARGE

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      The night was clear and bitterly cold when Hawtrey and Sally Creighton drove away from Stukely’s barn. Winter had lingered unusually long that year, and the prairie gleamed dimly white, with the sledge trail cutting athwart it, a smear of blue-gray in the foreground. It was—for Lander’s lay behind them with the snow among the stubble belts that engirdled it—an empty wilderness that the mettlesome team swung across, and during the first few minutes the cold struck through the horses with a sting like the thrust of steel. A half moon, coppery red with frost, hung low above the snow-covered earth, and there was no sound but the crunch beneath the runners, and the beat of hoofs that rang dully through the silence like a roll of muffled drums.

      Sleighs like the one that Hawtrey drove are not common on the prairie, where the farmer generally uses the humble bob-sled when the snow lies unusually long. It had been made for use in Montreal, and bought back East by a friend of Hawtrey’s, who was possessed of some means, which is a somewhat unusual thing in the case of a Western wheat-grower. This man also had bought the team—the fastest he could obtain—and when the warmth came back to the horses Hawtrey and the girl became conscious of the exhilaration of the swift and easy motion. The sleigh was light and narrow, and Hawtrey, who drew the thick driving-robe higher about Sally, did not immediately draw the mittened hand he had used back again. The girl did not resent the fact that it still rested behind her shoulder, nor did Hawtrey attach any particular significance to the fact. He was a man who usually acted on impulse. How far Sally understood him did not appear, but she came of folk who had waged a stubborn battle with the wilderness, and there was a vein of grim tenacity in her.

      She was, however, conscious that there was something beneath her feet which forced her, if she was to sit comfortably, rather close against her companion; and it seemed expedient to point it out.

      “Can’t you move a little? I can’t get my feet fixed right,” she said.

      Hawtrey looked down at her with a smile. “I’m afraid I can’t unless I get right outside. Aren’t you happy there?”

      It was the kind of speech he was in the habit of making, but there was rather more color in the girl’s face than the stinging night air brought there, and she glanced at the bottom of the sleigh.

      “It’s a sack of some kind, isn’t it?” she asked.

      “Yes,” Hawtrey answered, “it’s a couple of three-bushel bags. Some special seed Lorton sent to Winnipeg for. Ormond brought them out from the railroad. I promised I’d take them along to him.”

      “You should have told me. It’s most a league round by Lorton’s place,” Sally returned with reproach in her voice.

      “That won’t take long with this team. Have you any great objections to another fifteen minutes’ drive with me?”

      Sally looked up at him, and the moonlight was on her face, which was unusually pretty in the radiance of the brilliant night.

      “No,” she admitted, “I haven’t any.”

      She spoke demurely, but there was a perceptible something in her voice which might have warned the man, had he been in the habit of taking warning from anything, which, however, was not the case. It was one of his weaknesses that he seldom thought about what he did until he was compelled to face the consequences; and it was, perhaps, to his credit that he had after all done very little harm, for there was hot blood in him.

      “Well,” he responded, “I’m not going to grumble about those extra three miles, but you were asking what land I meant to break this spring. What put that into your mind?”

      “Our folks,” Sally replied candidly. “They were talking about you.”

      This again was significant, but Hawtrey did not notice it.

      “I’ve no doubt they said I ought to tackle the new quarter section,” he suggested.

      “Yes,” assented Sally. “Why don’t you do it? Last fall you thrashed out quite a big harvest.”

      “I certainly did. There, however, didn’t seem to be many dollars left over when I’d faced the bills.”

      The girl made a little gesture of impatience. “Oh, Bob and Jake and Jasper sowed on less backsetting,” she said, “and they’re buying new teams and plows. Can’t you do what they do, though I guess they don’t go off for weeks to Winnipeg?”

      The man was silent. He had an incentive for hard work about which she was ignorant, and he had certainly done much, but the long, iron winter, when there was nothing that could be done, had proved too severe a test for him. It was very dreary sitting alone evening after evening beside the stove, and the company of the somnolent Sproatly was not cheerful. Now and then his pleasure-loving nature had revolted from the barrenness of his lot when, stiff and cold, he drove home from an odd visit to a neighbor, and arriving in the dark found the stove had burned out and water had frozen hard inside the house. These were things his neighbors patiently endured, but Hawtrey had fled for life and brightness to Winnipeg.

      Sally glanced up at him with a little nod. “You take hold with a good grip. Everybody allows that,” she observed. “The trouble is you let things go afterwards. You don’t stay with it.”

      “Yes,” assented Hawtrey. “I believe you have hit it, Sally. That’s very much what’s the matter with me.”

      “Then,” said the girl with quiet insistence, “won’t you try?”

      A faint flush crept into Hawtrey’s face. Sally was less than half-taught, and unacquainted with anything beyond the simple, strenuous life of the prairie. Her greatest accomplishments consisted of some skill in bakery and the handling of half-broken teams; but she had once or twice given him what he recognized as excellent advice. There was something incongruous in the situation, but, as usual, he preferred to regard it whimsically.

      “I suppose I’ll have to, if you insist. If ever I’m the grasping owner of the biggest farm in this district I’ll blame you,” he answered.

      Sally said nothing further on that subject, and some time later the sleigh went skimming down among the birches in a shallow ravine. Hawtrey pulled the horses up when they reached the bottom of the ravine, and glanced up at a shapeless cluster of buildings that showed black amid the trees.

      “Lorton won’t be back until to-morrow, but I promised to