h her feet
which forced her, if she was to sit comfortably, rather close against
her companion; and it seemed expedient to point it out.

"Can't you move a little? I can't get my feet fixed right," she said.

Hawtrey looked down at her with a smile. "I'm afraid I can't unless I
get right outside. Aren't you happy there?"

It was the kind of speech he was in the habit of making, but there was
rather more color in the girl's face than the stinging night air brought
there, and she glanced at the bottom of the sleigh.

"It's a sack of some kind, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes," Hawtrey answered, "it's a couple of three-bushel bags. Some
special seed Lorton sent to Winnipeg for. Ormond brought them out from
the railroad. I promised I'd take them along to him."

"You should have told me. It's most a league round by Lorton's place,"
Sally returned with reproach in her voice.

"That won't take long with this team. Have you any great objections to
another fifteen minutes' drive with me?"

Sally looked up at him, and the moonlight was on her face, which was
unusually pretty in the radiance of the brilliant night.

"No," she admitted, "I haven't any."

She spoke demurely, but there was a perceptible something in her voice
which might have warned the man, had he been in the habit of taking
warning from anything, which, however, was not the case. It was one of
his weaknesses that he seldom thought about what he did until he was
compelled to face the consequences; and it was, perhaps, to his credit
that he had after all done very little harm, for there was hot blood in
him.

"Well," he responded, "I'm not going to grumble about those extra three
miles, but you were asking what land I meant to break this spring. What
put that into your mind?"

"Our folks," Sally replied candidly. "They were talking about you."

This again was significant, but Hawtrey did not notice it.

"I've no doubt they said I ought to tackle the new quarter section," he
suggested.

"Yes," assented Sally. "Why don't you do it? Last fall you thrashed out
quite a big harvest."

"I certainly did. There, however, didn't seem to be many dollars left
over when I'd faced the bills."

The girl made a little gesture of impatience. "Oh, Bob and Jake and
Jasper sowed on less backsetting," she said, "and they're buying new
teams and plows. Can't you do what they do, though I guess they don't go
off for weeks to Winnipeg?"

The man was silent. He had an ince