392 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



none either. 'Twasn't like him neither. Guess 

 this outfit will come on and thresh you out all 

 right soon as we've finished up here. About Monday 

 night I guess." 



Roddy McMahon has always a pull with a thresh- 

 ing outfit. The boss values him because he can 

 put in the work of two without getting disagreeable. 

 Through threshing he works in the same sort of 

 spirit in which Englishmen put in every minute 

 of a hunting run, so that all the gang like him too, 

 even pitchers who rest so frequently upon their 

 fork. He is never too tired to see that the women 

 in the house have plenty of water and wood to 

 engineer those three heavy meals, and whilst half 

 a dozen are bewailing the chore of milking, or having 

 a lively discussion as to whose turn it is not to milk, 

 he has planted the milk upon the kitchen table 

 and driven the cows back to pasture. Roddy 

 McMahon at his best is a good type of Canada's 

 most valuable specimen of the man on the land, 

 and as he is always in his best form through threshing 

 I knew I should get threshed out all right while 

 such a friend remained at court. 



" 'Twould be a good act if you were to see the boss 

 and get it fixed right now I guess," he said ; and 

 I rode across to the place where the manager was 

 talking to Sandy Stuart, whom I hadn't met before, 

 only we both claimed Mr. Brodie as a mutual 

 friend. 



" Too bad of David not to have let them come 

 on to you from John McLeay," he said. " You 

 should have come to me." 



Too bad it might have been, but it was quite 

 right all the same, as he proved when he gave way 



