246 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



in anything but the silence of the night. The 

 stable roof, too, had its weak points, and one night 

 my leg went through a thin place in the roof and 

 then set so tight that I endured all the torments of 

 the legless in ten seconds. Sometimes the wind 

 blew so hard that one had to set one's teeth to climb 

 the ladder, search for the binder-twine of the 

 sheaves by sense of touch, because snow falling on 

 the warm glass of the storm-lantern meant grave 

 destruction to fifteen-cent chimneys in bad times. 

 But in average weather the chore of the last feed 

 was altogether delightful, one could see the white 

 landscape for miles around by light of the moon, the 

 wind seldom stirred, the cattle lay around, gazing 

 in restful content at the heavens, or munching big 

 caverns in the oat-straw stack. None could possibly 

 feel lonely within sound of the friendly, flattering 

 greetings that are heard from the stable at the first 

 sound of your footstep until the last gallon of 

 oats has been deposited in the last empty box, 

 and the day's work is really over. One walked 

 back to the cottage under a world of stars and the 

 drawn swords of the glorious legions known as the 

 Northern Lights, a regiment which the archangels 

 might have provided as a Royal Guard to guide all 

 strangers through the new land, where Fear the 

 gaoler cannot breathe. 



Early in December I was confronted with trouble. 

 With great care I had kept my own cattle out of the 

 tack-yard, except for one defiant steer who leaped 

 a barbed-wire fence as a chaser leaps a hurdle. 

 Tom Klein had completed my ring-fence, but being 

 in a hurry to attend a fair, had gone off without 

 making a gate. With the optimistic intention of 



