WHEAT SALES—THE FALL— LE BRET 63 



It was still a bath, but dedicated to the pickling' of 

 seed grain, and for the first time I honestly wished 

 I hadn't parted with it. 



Lai being on the trail day by day, Hilaria and I 

 decided that it was time to return our calls. It was 

 not quite so easy as it sounds, in spite of the fact that 

 Jess, the mare of our light team, went really well in 

 single harness, so that we were no longer at the mercy 

 of the mood of Charles Edward ; but the fact was 

 that neither Hilaria nor I knew the way to hitch up. 

 Our neighbour's shack was almost half a mile away 

 across the big wheat-field, and whenever a desperate 

 and unexpected occasion arose for going down to 

 the Fort we used to shout for him ; and even then 

 neither of us thought of learning the order and detail 

 of the harness, it looked so clumsy and heavy and 

 complicated ; and Hilaria always seemed so sure that 

 our neighbour liked coming. As a matter of fact, 

 it wasn't until the following spring that I mastered 

 the simple method of strapping those three simple 

 main fittings which contribute to the altogether of 

 single harness. 



The occasion was memorable. I had been asked 

 to an afternoon party at which I really wanted to 

 be present, and the hired man had gone into town. 

 For half an hour I worked, very nearly wept, and 

 utterly failed to make shaft strappings pan out back 

 or front. In despair I led pony and buggy, per- 

 suaded together by an arrangement of my own, to 

 the nearest neighbours, a Canadian family who 

 hadn't long arrived in the neighbourhood. I knew 

 there were quite a number of girls, and one always 

 seemed to meet them in their buggy, so I felt sure 

 they would be able to do it for me. 



