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 



