10 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



elastic property of money. " Well, I shall have to 

 throw up my job for the day," he added, " as you 

 will need Charles Edward to take you down to the 

 Fort." 



" I can easily walk it," I said. " Please go on 

 getting in the hay. I suppose I was a fool not to 

 have settled it at halves like the potatoes. But you 

 see he said there was plenty left for us, and it seemed 

 rather hard luck to take it from him as he had 

 gathered it all himself." 



" Hard luck ! Isn't it the talk of the neighbour- 

 hood that you have been silly enough to give fifteen 

 dollars an acre for the old place ? " 



" With the cro'ps,^'' I corrected. " You may be 

 as pessimistic as you please. I believe in the place 

 absolutely and entirely. Since an eighty-acre field 

 can produce five hundred pounds' worth of w^heat 

 on a three hundred and twenty acre farm, it stands 

 to reason that if one breaks up the lot it will pro- 

 duce one thousand five hundred pounds, therefore 

 it must be extraordinarily cheap at a thousand 

 guineas, comfortably arranged on a system of two 

 hundred and ten pounds down, two hundred and 

 ten pounds after harvest, and the balance in annual 

 instalments at six per cent." 



" You bought the land with the crops, and you 

 ought to have stuck to the hay," he insisted. " In 

 Britain hay represents nine-tenths of its own value, 

 and the labour attached to its harvest the last 

 fraction. Over here it's precisely the reverse. You 

 could easily get a hundred tons of hay for the 

 gathering in the neighbourhood of my homestead. 

 But first find your labourer." 



I set out for Fort Qu'Appelle by the side trail 



