390 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



Guy Mazey had arrived. " Did you think of starting 

 to-day ? " I inquired. 



" Well, I guess we may be able to start up after 

 dinner." 



" It's out of the question," I said. " That grain 

 looks perfectly clean at sight, but there is smut 

 here and there, and to thresh it to-day or even 

 to-morrow without the strongest wind and sun 

 to dry it out would be fatal. I know your gang 

 are kicking badly, and I am afraid they are going to 

 be harder to hold than you think. I'll keep the 

 outfit round gladly if I have to keep them a month, 

 but I won't have a solitary stook threshed until 

 it is absolutely fit and dry. It's the first sound good 

 crop I have raised. I am not going to take any 

 chances." 



" The men are very hard to hold indeed," he 

 agreed, " and I should be glad to pay them all off. 

 But what shall you do ? You see the others round 

 are threshed out, and maybe you would find it 

 difficult to get an outfit to put in for one small 

 crop." 



" I must risk that. I met Mr. Redcliffe and he 

 said he would come in on his way home ; it will 

 probably be late, but anything is better than a crop 

 spoiled after harvest. You think it over and if 

 you can't hold the men I shall understand, and any 

 expenses concerned with the incoming of course 

 I will pay." 



Fort Qu' Appelle, like all small towns, has a tendency 

 to gossip. The different reports that got on to the 

 four winds and other tongues concerning the entrance 

 and rapid exit of Guy Mazey's threshing outfit from 

 my threshing job that year were many, varied, and 



