372 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



reminded me of the arduous toil of the previous 

 harvest which I had steadily refused to acknowledge 

 at the time. The icy hours of the winter of 

 1 906-1 907 recurred to my brain, with the serious 

 personal disappointment of the sum total of my 

 wild-oats harvest of 1906, and the far more serious 

 because general calamity of the frozen harvest of 

 1907 — big reverses these — but with my fresh flow 

 of capital and experience I knew I could force a 

 way through. Only the fire would wipe away 

 everything : seed-wheat, seed-oats, house and gran- 

 aries and barn. True, the most precious of my 

 possessions — my four-footed friends — would be left 

 to me ; but the black and dreary waste grinned down 

 even this touch of consolation, whilst a mocker in 

 the air whispered : " To sell or to starve ! " 



It was the last straw. Involuntarily my eyes 

 quitted their post to glance their way. There they 

 were, racing away towards safety in a slough, driven 

 by a scarlet line of flame which was literally sweeping 

 the pasture out of recognition and had contrived 

 to leave my house and the unorthodox farm build- 

 ings, the granaries, the seed-grain, the feed-grain 

 and my goods and chattels in the safeguard of a 

 black unbroken circular fence. The hill and the 

 north-west wind had fought against each other ; 

 the wind was with the flames, but " the Power 

 that works behind phenomena " was posted on 

 the hill. 



" Gee ! but it's cut round in the bottom." 



" Well, say now, ain't that right down lucky ! 

 And the wind driving it along too ! Seemed sure 

 thing." 



" Can't come back on you now, anyway. You're 



