24 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



" I guess I shan't never get that far, Lai," was the 

 rejoinder. " I ain't what you may call a great 

 traveller. Likely I might get so far as Regina, but 

 that's about the limit." 



" Well, get along and get the water, and then 

 come and give me a hand cleaning out the stable, 

 and earn your supper." 



On that afternoon I walked around the farm. It 

 was a mile east and west by half a mile north and 

 south, but as it was then unfenced I found it difficult 

 to be sure of the boundary line at the east end. 

 I walked through the forty-acre pasture, which 

 consists of a stretch of rough but attractive virgin 

 prairie. Five sloughs break up this field, affording 

 good water for beasts, and a coarse but seemingly 

 popular herbage when the water dries out towards 

 the end of July. On the hill at the north boundary 

 the only bluff of the pasture keeps guard, and it is 

 the favourite hide-and-seek playground of cattle 

 and horses. A group of tall poplars graces the fore- 

 ground, and a thicket of withies in the rear has been 

 picturesquely graded by horns and hoofs to the pool 

 of water which marks its silent heart. On that first 

 day of our association I vowed that no tree should be 

 permitted to fall from the stately group of poplars, 

 which stand for beauty from the first breath of 

 springtime to the last fierce breath of the destroying 

 angel of the Fall, and through all the loneliness 

 of the white-clad winter months their form, even 

 without the glory of colour, is beauty still. Within 

 a year I had fenced the land, and discovered that 

 only one-half of the bluff was on the right side of 

 the fence — but that half included the poplars. 



Just beyond the pasture was an even stretch of 



