128 DEEP FURROWS 



When men set themselves up in business they expect 

 to have to compete for their share of trade. The 

 farmers did not expect to find their path lined with 

 other grain dealers cheering them forward and waving 

 their hats. They expected competition of the keenest. 

 What they could not anticipate, however, was the 

 lengths to which the fight might go or the methods that 

 might be adopted to put their Agency out of business 

 altogether. 



Hitherto the grain grower had been in the back- 

 ground when it came to marketing and handling 

 grain. He was away out in the country somewhere 

 busy plowing, busy seeding, busy harvesting, busy 

 something-or-other. He was a Farm Hand who so 

 " tuckered himself out " during daylight that he was 

 glad to pry off his wrinkled boots and lie down when 

 it got dark in order to yank them on again, when the 

 rooster crowed at dawn, for the purpose of " tuckering 

 himself out " all over again. It was true that without 

 him there would have been no grain to handle ; equally 

 true that without the grain dealers the farmer would 

 have been in difficulty if he tried to hunt up individual 

 consumers to buy his wheat. The farmer interfering in 

 the established grain trade was something new and it 

 was not to be supposed that when the surprise of it 

 wore off things were not liable to happen. 



The farmer was quick to infer that the action of the 

 bank in cutting off the trading company's credit with- 

 out apparent cause was another move of the opposing 

 forces. It was so palpably a vital spot at which to 

 strike. 



This time, however, the threatening cloud evaporated 

 almost as soon as it appeared. The manager, W. H. 

 Machaffie, resigned and assumed the management 



