e pine, for he always
associated her and her father with the land to which they belonged.
There was nothing voluptuous in any line of the girl's face or figure;
the effect was chastely severe, and he knew that it conveyed a reliable
hint of her character. This was not marked by coldness, but rather by
an absence of superficial warmth. The calmness of her eyes spoke of
depth and balance. She was steadfast and consistent; a daughter of the
stern, snow-scourged North.

Then he glanced at the prairie, which ran west, streaked with ochre
stubble in the foreground, then white and silvery gray, with neutral
smears of poplar bluffs, to the blaze of crimson where it cut the sky.
It was vast and lonely; at first sight a hard, forbidding land that
broke down the slack of purpose and drove out the sybarite. He had
sometimes shrunk from it, but it was slowly fastening its hold on him,
and he now understood how it molded the nature of its inhabitants. For
the most part, they were far from effusive; some of their ways were
primitive and perhaps slightly barbarous, but there was vigor and
staunchness in them. They stuck to the friends they had tried and were
admirable in action; it was when, as they said, they were up against it
that one learned most about the strong hearts of these men and women.

"Lansing will be away some days," Grant said presently. "What are you
going to do next week?"

"Put up the new fence, most likely. The land's a little soft for
plowing yet."

"That's so. As you'll have no use for the teams, it would be a good
time to haul in some of the seed wheat. I've a carload coming out."

"A carload!" exclaimed Edgar in surprise, remembering the large
carrying capacity of the Canadian freight-cars. "At the price they've
been asking, it must have cost you a pile."

"It did," said Grant. "I generally try to get down to bed-rock figure,
but I don't mind paying it. The fellow who worked up that wheat
deserves his money."

"You mean the seed's worth its price if the crop escapes the frost?"

"That wasn't quite all I meant. I'm willing to pay the man for the
work he has put into it. Try to figure the cross fertilizations he
must have made, the varieties he's tried and cut out, and remember it
takes time to get a permanent strain, and wheat makes only one crop a
year. If the stuff's as good as it seems, the fellow's done something
he'll never be paid for. Anyway, he's welcome to my share."

"There's