w far they had
still to go.

"You ought to make it in a day and a half," said the other. "I'll ride
in with you; run a store and hotel there, but feel I want to get out on
the prairie now and then, and as a horse was missing I went after him.
A looker, isn't he?"

Blake admired the animal, and suggested that the stranger had better
join them instead of cooking a separate supper. The fellow, who told
them that his name was Gardner, had a good-humoured, sunburned face and
an honest look. The prairie was now wrapped in inky gloom, and there
was an impressive stillness except for the occasional rustle of a leaf,
but when Harding came out of the bluff with a load of wood a puff of
icy wind suddenly stirred the grass. The harsh rustle it made was
followed by a deafening crash, and a jagged streak of lightning fell
from the leaden clouds; then the air was filled with the roar of
driving hail. It swept the wood, rending leaves and smashing twigs,
while the men crouched inside the straining tent and a constant blaze
of lightning flickered about the grass. By and by the thunder died
away and the hail gave place to torrential rain, while the slender
trees rocked in the blast and small branches drove past the tent. This
lasted some minutes, after which the rain ceased suddenly and a fierce
red light streamed along the saturated grass from the huge sinking sun.
Harding, who had brought the wood into the tent, took it out and with
the stranger's help soon made a fire.

It was getting dark, though a band of transcendental green still burned
upon the prairie's western edge when they finished supper and, sitting
round the fire, took out their pipes. The hobbled horses were quietly
grazing near them.

"That's undoubtedly a fine animal," Blake remarked. "Is it yours?"

"No; it belongs to Clarke's Englishman."

"Who's he? It's a curious way to speak of a fellow."

"It fits him," said the other. "Guess he's Clarke's, hide and bones,
and that's all there'll be when the doctor has done with him. He's a
sucker the doctor taught farming and then sold land to."

"Then who's the doctor?" Harding inquired.

"That's not so easy to answer, but he's a man you want to be friends
with if you stay near the settlement. Teaches farming to tenderfoot
young Englishmen and Americans; finds them land and stock to start
with, and makes a mighty good thing out of it. Goes to Montreal now
and then, but whether it's to look up fresh sucke