400 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



sumer of fruit and vegetables in Canada ; but, 

 given justice in weight and grade, I can well afford 

 to pay ten cents a bushel for the transport of my 

 grain, and I know that if I pay less it will not be 

 at the cost of shareholders' profits, but at the cost 

 of the inconvenience and delayed prosperity of 

 the pioneer and the homesteader, whose experience 

 I have endured. 



To return to my story, I paid the Bank since it 

 was too late to draw back, but there was no further 

 loan forthcoming. The chasm between the receipts 

 of 1908 and the accumulated payments of 1907 

 and 1908 had to be bridged. At this critical moment 

 my predecessor appeared on the scene to announce 

 that it was necessary to apply not only for the 

 deferred payment of 1907, but the payment of the 

 current year in addition — two thousand dollars 

 plus one year's interest at 7 per cent. My pre- 

 decessor and I had become the best of friends, but 

 it appeared that a near relative was in great financial 

 distress, and there was nothing for it but to demand 

 my land payments ; so we resolved to do the best 

 we could for each other on the cheapest possible 

 terms. 



I turned at once to the banker who had advanced 

 me money when the Union Bank had refused it 

 in 1907. In difhculty it is wise to place one's 

 confidence in brain. Donald H. Macdonald, the 

 second son of the last of the chief factors of the 

 Hudson Bay Company, has the reputation of being 

 one of the shrewdest as well as one of the wealthiest 

 men in Western Canada, and he never failed to 

 help me when I went to him for counsel or financial 

 service. In affairs he is not to be described as hard 



