The sun beat down on the prairie, which was already losing its flush of green, but it was cool where Maud Barrington and her aunt stood in the shadow of the bluff¹ by Silverdale Grange. The birches, tasseled² now with whispering foliage³, divided the homestead front the waste which would lie white and desolate⁴ under the parching⁵ heat, and that afternoon it seemed to the girl that the wall of green shut out more than the driving dust and sun-glare from the Grange, for where the trees were thinner she could see moving specks⁶ of men and horses athwart the skyline.  
They had toiled⁷ in the sun-baked furrow⁹ since the first flush of crimson¹⁰ streaked¹² the prairie's rim¹¹, and the chill of dusk would fall upon the grasses before their work was done. Those men who bore the burden and heat of the day were, the girl knew, helots now, but there was in them the silent vigor¹³ and something of the somberness of the land of rock and forest they came from, and a time would come when others would work for them. Winning slowly, holding grimly, they were moving on, while secure in its patrician¹⁴ tranquillity¹⁶; Silverdale stood still, and Maud Barrington smiled curiously¹⁷ as she glanced down at the long white robe that clung very daintily about her and then towards her companions in the tennis field. Her apparel had cost many dollars in Montreal, and there was a joyous¹⁸ irresponsibility in the faces of those she watched.
 
"It is a little unequal, isn't it, aunt?" she said. "One feels inclined to wonder what we have done that we should have exemption¹⁹ from the charge laid upon the first tiller of the soil that we, and the men who are plodding²⁰ through the dust there, are descended²¹ from."
 
Miss Barrington laughed a little as she glanced with a nod of comprehension at the distant toilers, and more gravely towards the net. Merry voices came up to her through the shadows of the trees as English lad and English maiden²³, lissom²⁴ and picturesque²⁵ in many-hued jackets and light dresses, flitted across the little square of velvet²⁷ green. The men had followed the harrow and seeder a while that morning. Some of them, indeed, had for a few hours driven a team, and then left the rest to the hired hands, for the stress and sweat of effort that was to turn the wilderness²⁸ into a granary was not for such as they.
 
"Don't you think it is all made up to those others?" she asked.
 
"In one sense--yes," said the girl. "Of course, one can see that all effort must have its idealistic aspect, and there may be men who find their compensation in the thrill of the fight, and the knowledge of work well done when they rest at night. Still, I fancy most of them only toil⁸ to eat, and their views are not revealed to us. We are, you see, women--and we live at Silverdale."
 
Her aunt smiled again. "How long is it since the plow²⁹ crossed the Red River, and what is Manitoba now? How did those mile furrows³⁰ come there, and who drove the road that takes the wheat out through the granite³¹ of the Superior shore? It was more than their appetites that impelled³² those men, my dear. Still, it is scarcely wise to expect too much when one meets them, for though one could feel it is presumptuous³³ to forgive its deficiencies, the Berserk type of manhood is not conspicuous³⁴ for its refinement³⁵."
 
For no apparent reason Maud Barrington evaded³⁶ her aunt's gaze. "You," she said dryly, "have forgiven one of that type a good deal already, but, at least, we have never seen him when the fit was upon him."
 
Miss Barrington laughed. "Still, I have no doubt that, sooner or later, you will enjoy the spectacle."
 
Just then, a light wagon³⁷ came up behind them, and when one of the hired men helped them in they swept out of the cool shade into the dust and glare of the prairie, and when some little time later, with the thud of hoofs³⁸ and rattle³⁹ of wheels softened⁴⁰ by the bleaching⁴¹ sod, they rolled down a rise, there was spread out before them evidence of man's activity.
 
Acre by acre, gleaming chocolate brown against the gray and green of the prairie, the wheat loam⁴² rolled away, back to the ridge⁴³, over it, and on again. It was such a breadth of sowing as had but once, when wheat was dear, been seen at Silverdale, but still across the foreground, advancing in echelon⁴⁴, came lines of dusty teams, and there was a meaning in the furrows they left behind them, for they were not plowing⁴⁵ where the wheat had been. Each wave of lustrous⁴⁶ clods that rolled from the gleaming shares was so much rent from the virgin⁴⁷ prairie, and a promise of what would come when man had fulfilled his mission and the wilderness would blossom. There was a wealth of food stored, little by little during ages past counting, in every yard of the crackling sod to await the time when the toiler²² with the sweat of the primeval curse upon his forehead should unseal it with the plow. It was also borne in upon Maud Barrington that the man who directed those energies was either altogether without discernment, or one who saw further than his fellows and had an excellent courage, when he flung his substance into the furrows while wheat was going down. Then as the hired man pulled up the wagon she saw him.
 
A great plow with triple shares had stopped at the end of the furrow, and the leading horses were apparently⁴⁸ at variance⁴⁹ with the man who, while he gave of his own strength to the uttermost, was asking too much from them. Young and indifferently broken, tortured by swarming⁵⁰ insects, and galled⁵¹ by the strain of the collar, they had laid back their ears, and the wickedness of the bronco strain shone in their eyes. One rose almost upright amid a clatter⁵² of harness, its mate squealed⁵³ savagely⁵⁴, and the man who loosed one hand from the head-stall flung out an arm. Then he and the pair whirled round together amid the trampled⁵⁵ clods in a blurred⁵⁶ medley⁵⁷ of spume-flecked bodies, soil-stained jean, flung-up hoofs, and an arm that swung and smote⁵⁸ again. Miss Barrington grew a trifle pale as she watched, but a little glow crept into her niece's eyes.
 
The struggle, however, ended suddenly, and hailing a man who plodded⁵⁹ behind another team, Winston picked up his broad hat, which was trampled into shapelessness, and turned towards the wagon. There was dust and spume upon him, a rent in the blue shirt, and the knuckles⁶⁰ of one hand dripped red, but he laughed as he said, "I did not know we had an audience, but this, you see, is necessary."
 
"Is it?" asked Miss Barrington, who glanced at the plowing. "When wheat is going down?"
 
Winston nodded. "Yes," he said. "I mean, to me; and the price of wheat is only one part of the question."
 
Miss Barrington stretched out her hand, though her niece said nothing at all. "Of course, but I want you to help us down. Maud has an account you have not sent in to ask you for."
 
Winston first turned to the two men who now stood by the idle machine. "You'll have to drive those beasts of mine as best you can, Tom, and Jake will take your team. Get them off again now. This piece of breaking has to be put through before we loose again."
 
Then he handed his visitors down, and Maud Barrington fancied as he walked with them to the house that the fashion in which the damaged hat hung down over his eyes would have rendered most other men ludicrous. He left them a space in his bare sitting-room⁶¹, which suggested only grim utility, and Miss Barrington smiled when her niece glanced at her.
 
"And this is how Lance, the profligate⁶², lives!" said she.
 
Maud Barrington shook her head. "No," she said. "Can you believe that this man was ever a prodigal⁶³?"
 
Her aunt was a trifle less astonished than she would once have been, but before she could answer Winston, who had made a trifling⁶⁴ change in his clothing, came in.
 
"I can give you some green tea, though I am afraid it might be a good deal better than it is, and our crockery is not all you have been used to," he said. "You see, we have only time to think of one thing until the sowing is through."
 
Miss Barrington's eyes twinkled. "And then?"
 
"Then," said Winston, with a little laugh, "there will be prairie hay to cut, and after that the harvest coming on."
 
"In the meanwhile, it was business that brought me here, and I have a check with me," said Maud Barrington. "Please let us get it over first of all."
 
Winston sat down at a table and scribbled⁶⁵ on a strip of paper. "That," he said gravely, "is what you owe me for the plowing."
 
There was a little flush in his face as he took the check the girl filled in, and both felt somewhat grateful for the entrance of a man in blue jean with the tea. It was of very indifferent quality, and he had sprinkled a good deal on the tray, but Winston felt a curious thrill as he watched the girl pour it out at the head of the bare table. Her white dress gleamed in the light of a dusty window, and the shadowy cedar⁶⁶ boarding behind her forced up each line of the shapely figure. Again the maddening temptation took hold of him, and he wondered whether he had betrayed too much when he felt the elder lady's eyes upon h............