374 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



" My ! But I guess you struck it lucky that time 

 all right ! " 



I think the escape from the threat of grave loss 

 and danger did me much good at the time. There 

 is always a temptation to put off the duty of to-day 

 until to-morrow on a Canadian farm, not altogether 

 through sloth but through over-work, aggravated 

 by lack of method. The fire-guards around the 

 buildings and the granaries would have taken but 

 half a day of fall-ploughing, and not only would 

 one have been secure against loss through fire, but 

 in the event of such a fire rushing over the land 

 one could have reaped the benefit of its passing 

 with very little tax in the way of loss. It would 

 have burnt off the stubble — always a day's work — 

 cleaned out old sloughs, making clear way for 

 young and tender herb, and in the shortest space 

 of time replaced the dusky hue of the prairie with 

 a coat of emerald green. Fire has always been 

 welcome to the well-prepared as an excellent time- 

 saver in the seeding month ; yet danger there is 

 and always will be as long as the unprepared are 

 among the others ; and it is good for the country 

 that the danger of prairie fire in completely settled 

 districts has almost passed away. At the time of 

 the danger which beset me I was almost completely 

 surrounded by unbroken prairie. Nearly all the 

 land of the neighbourhood is now under cultivation, 

 and there is no fire-guard or exterminator of superior 

 efficiency to a stretch of ploughed land. 



The fire was followed by the last snowstorm of 

 the season ; it checked seeding for six days, and then 

 spring really came. After finishing the big field 

 we sowed the newly broken twenty-five acres, then 



