THE LAND AND THE MAN 283 



sight of Sergeant-Ma j or Dubuque in the High 

 Street, and turned back to ask him if he could 

 help me. 



It chanced that a young man was doing a wood- 

 bucking chore for him at the moment whom he 

 thought might be useful to me. He had just re- 

 turned from a sojourn in Regina, where he had been 

 a guest of the Government ; but the Sergeant 

 assured me that the part he had played in a horse 

 deal was certainly not the leading part, although 

 it had carried off the penalty, and that he could 

 honestly advise me to give him a trial. Also he 

 recommended me to offer him fifteen dollars a 

 month, and what he was worth at the end of it. 



I had expected to pay at least twenty-five or 

 thirty dollars, and I engaged the man, whom I 

 will call Adam, on the spot. He dropped the buck- 

 saw, put his coat over his overalls, and got into 

 the buggy after he had fetched a small brown- 

 paper parcel from the house. On the way home 

 he sat at the extreme edge of the seat, which must 

 have been most uncomfortable, and at the half-way 

 point of our journey he carefully unfastened the 

 brown-paper parcel, and refreshed himself from 

 its contents of dry bread which was keeping company 

 with a collar, a tie, and a brush and comb. 



" They give it to me when I left the jail yesterday 

 morning," he explained. " But that Sergeant 

 what's his name ? Dubuque ? Well, he's a good 

 man all right. A man needn't go hungry there." 



I shouldn't refer to his visit to Regina only that 

 from the first he discussed it so frankly himself, 

 his chief topic of conversation was of life within 

 walls of the house with the barred door, and the 



