394 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



for the time being a study in brown and gold, and an 

 unaccomplished fact as a seed-bed. 



" You didn't pay him ? " said Roddy McMahon 

 hopefully, when I met him on the trail, and told 

 him that he had gone. 



" Of course I paid him," I said. " His work was 

 excellent, but he refused to go on with it, and I 

 paid him off." 



" He owed me five dollars," he said. " Guess we 

 shall never see that bird in these parts again." 



" It was very foolish of you to lend it at all," I 

 said, " but why not have told me, and I could have 

 kept it back for you." 



" I guessed the fellow was all right, though he 

 had some queer ways," he explained. 



The outfit had proved to be the quickest and most 

 satisfactory that had yet threshed out for me, and 

 to prove that Roddy McMahon's law of " getting 

 in the seed good and quick all right " is three- 

 fourths of the battle with the frost, the crop 

 that year, in spite of the frost of August 12, 

 was entirely uninjured. The wheat from the 

 summer-fallow was of perfect quality, very large, 

 plump, hard, and bright gold. But it was heavily 

 sprinkled with wild oats although I had mowed 

 down ten acres, and had cast out the worst sheaves 

 also from patches of wild oats which had gained 

 complete possession here and there leaving yield 

 of wheat practically nil. The wheat from the 

 breaking was wonderfully good, and came out 

 far and away above the threshers' estimate in weight, 

 which is the supreme test. From the stubble crop of 

 my breaking of 1906 I also got an excellent return of 

 good grain ; there was some smut, but we had threshed 



