194 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



to time. But even the worst kicker submits to my 

 method, so it has its points. 



It was early in June that a letter came from my 

 eldest brother to say that he was coming out. His 

 intention was to start a brewery. I hoped that he 

 would find the water of Fort Qu'Appelle good 

 enough for anything. He intended, however, to 

 put in a month on the land with me, and he wished 

 to spend that month precisely as he would spend it 

 were he one of a thousand immigrants tailed off to 

 work for any farmer. I was delighted. He had 

 justly earned the reputation of doing things 

 thoroughly. Great interests had often been placed 

 in his care with a sigh of relief, and the more difficult 

 the task the greater pleasure he had always seemed 

 to take in ploughing his way through. He was due 

 to arrive about the third week in June, and when 

 day after day passed and there was no news of him 

 I got most horribly anxious. Besides, the haying 

 season was approaching, and at last in despair I 

 engaged Harvey minor for a month, so that he 

 might help Roddy McMahon put up a few loads 

 in case my brother had wandered up another trail, 

 although I began to feel quite certain he was dead. 



I walked over to my neighbour one Sunday after- 

 noon and confided to him that I was most wretched 

 because all through the night a spider had ticked 

 the death-watch on my bedroom wall. He led me 

 into three corners of his shack, and I heard the same 

 funeral march in each ; and then he advised me to 

 spend a couple of hours weeding the mustard in my 

 wheat-field by way of a nerve tonic. 



On the next day Roddy McMahon's father came 

 to see me, and he always came to stay. He had the 



