ned farmer.

Had she been asked a few months earlier whether the man who had, as
Courthorne had done, cast away his honor and wallowed in the mire,
could come forth again and purge himself from the stain, her answer
would have been coldly skeptical, but now with the old familiar miracle
and what it symbolized before her eyes, the thing looked less
improbable. Why this should give her pleasure she did not know, or
would not admit that she did, but the fact remained that it was so.

Trotting down the slope of the next rise, they came upon him, as he
stood by a great breaker plow with very little sign of dissolute living
upon him. In front of him, the quarter-mile furrow led on beyond the
tall sighting poles on the crest of the next rise, and four splendid
horses, of a kind not very usual on the prairie, were stamping the
steaming clods at his side. Bronzed by frost and sun, with his
brick-red neck and arch of chest revealed by the coarse blue shirt
that, belted at the waist, enhanced his slenderness, the repentant
prodigal was at least a passable specimen of the animal man, but it was
the strength and patience in his face that struck the girl, as he
turned towards her, bareheaded, with a little smile in his eyes. She
also noticed the difference he presented with his ingrained hands and
the stain of the soil upon him, to her uncle, who sat his horse,
immaculate as usual, with gloved hand on the bridle, for the Englishmen
at Silverdale usually hired other men to do their coarser work for them.

"So you are commencing in earnest in face of my opinion?" said
Barrington. "Of course, I wish you success, but that consummation
appears distinctly doubtful."

Winston laughed as he pointed to a great machine which, hauled by four
horses, rolled towards them, scattering the black clods in its wake.
"I'm doing what I can to achieve it, sir," he said. "In fact, I'm
staking somewhat heavily. That team with the gang plows and
cultivators cost me more dollars than I care to remember."

"No doubt," said Barrington dryly. "Still, we have always considered
oxen good enough for breaking prairie at Silverdale."

Winston nodded. "I used to do so, sir, when I could get nothing
better, but after driving oxen for eight years one finds out their
disadvantages."

Barrington's face grew a trifle stern. "There are times when you tax
our patience, Lance," he said. "Still, there is nothing to be gained
by questioning your assertion.