312 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



and then I took him a short distance in the buggy. 

 It was on such an occasion that I first heard the 

 fear which had been hovering in my mind put into 

 words by another. " Dick's failing," said a woman 

 who had been born and bred on the prairie and knew 

 every phase and turn of that dread disease of the 

 equine race, swamp-fever. " Dick's failing " ! In 

 that moment I knew that life held more in the 

 balance than a hundred harvests, and realized the 

 full meaning of the difference in animal and vegetable 

 life. Dick, who had been swift as a sunbeam as he 

 pulled the cutter across the snow, strong as a young 

 lion, and gentle as a child as he lent his brave shoulder 

 to the disc or harrows, or scampered with the buggy 

 over the trail — Ricky, who had never omitted to 

 whinny forth a friendly greeting even when oats 

 were almost under his nose, was failing / Out of 

 the clear intelligence of his eyes he made one under- 

 stand that it was no good, that something in the 

 very centre of him had given way and he couldn't 

 go on ; that even to draw me just a mile or so 

 across the prairie was too much. 



My neighbours came to see him. Guy Mazey, 

 who had lost six horses through swamp-fever in less 

 than as many months, another neighbour who had 

 lost twelve. All of them were of the same opinion 

 that Ricky was smitten with the dread disease in 

 which the victim first shows unmistakable signs of 

 failing energy, then passes into that stage where 

 life seems gradually consumed through internal fire, 

 and the horse fades slowly away like a human being 

 in the last stage of consumption. Happily this 

 terrifying form of sickness seems to be passing away 

 from the settled parts of the prairie, and I never 



