m
Ontario who staked their little handful of dollars on the first wheat
crop to be wrested from the prairie, bore it, however. From what Miss
Barrington had told her, it was clear that Courthorne's first year in
Canada could not have been spent in this fashion, but there was no
doubt in the girl's mind as she listened. Her faith was equal to a
more strenuous test.

"There is a difference in the present, but who taught you
bridge-building? It takes years to learn the use of the ax," she said.

Winston laughed. "I think it took me four, but the man who has not a
dollar to spare usually finds out how to do a good many things for
himself, and I had working drawings of the bridge made in Winnipeg.
Besides, your friends have helped me with their hands as well as their
good-will. Except at the beginning, they have all been kind to me, and
one could not well have expected very much from them then."

Maud Barrington colored a trifle as she remembered her own attitude
towards him. "Cannot you forget it?" she said, with a curious little
ring in her voice. "They would do anything you asked them now."

"One generally finds it useful to have a good memory, and I remember
most clearly that, although they had very little reason for it, most of
them afterwards trusted me. That made, and still makes, a great
difference to me."

The girl appeared thoughtful. "Does it?" she said. "Still, do you
know, I fancy that if they had tried to drive you out, you would have
stayed in spite of them?"

"Yes," said Winston dryly. "I believe I would, but the fact that in a
very little while they held out a friendly hand to a stranger steeped
in suspicion, and gave him the chance to prove himself their equal,
carries a big responsibility. That, and your aunt's goodness, puts so
many things one might have done out of the question."

The obvious inference was that the prodigal had been reclaimed by the
simple means of putting him on his honor, but that did not for a moment
suggest itself to the girl. She had often regretted her own disbelief
and once more felt the need for reparation.

"Lance," she said, very quietly, "my aunt was wiser than I was, but she
was mistaken. What she gave you out of her wide charity was already
yours by right."

That was complete and final, for Maud Barrington did nothing by half,
and Winston recognized that she held him blameless in the past, which
she could not know, as well as in the present, which wa