between us would have been out of the question. Now, it is
only your due to tell you that I have been wrong from the beginning,
and you have a good deal to forgive."

"I think we need not go into that," said Winston, with a little smile.
"This is a business deal, and if it hadn't suited me I would not have
made it."

He went out in another few minutes with a little strip of paper, and
just before he left the Grange placed it in Maud Barrington's hands.

"You will not ask any questions, but if ever Colonel Barrington is not
kind to you, you can show him that," he said.

He had gone in another moment, but the girl, comprehending dimly what
he had done, stood still, staring at the paper with a warmth in her
cheeks and a mistiness in her eyes.

CHAPTER XXIII

SERGEANT STIMSON CONFIRMS HIS SUSPICIONS

It was late in the afternoon when Colonel Barrington drove up to
Winston's homestead. He had his niece and sister with him, and when he
pulled up his team, all three were glad of the little breeze that came
down from the blueness of the north and rippled the whitened grass. It
had blown over leagues of sun-bleached prairie, and the great
desolation beyond the pines of the Saskatchewan, but had not wholly
lost the faint, wholesome chill it brought from the Pole.

There was no cloud in the vault of ether, and slanting sun-rays beat
fiercely down upon the prairie, until the fibrous dust grew fiery and
the eyes ached from the glare of the vast stretch of silvery gray. The
latter was, however, relieved by stronger color in front of the party,
for blazing gold on the dazzling stubble, the oat sheaves rolled away
in long rows that diminished and melted into each other, until they cut
the blue of the sky in a delicate filigree. Oats had moved up in value
in sympathy with wheat, and the good soil had most abundantly redeemed
its promise that year. Colonel Barrington, however, sighed a little as
he looked at them, and remembered that such a harvest might have been
his.

"We will get down and walk towards the wheat," he said. "It is a good
crop and Lance is to be envied."

"Still," said Miss Barrington, "he deserved it, and those sheaves stand
for more than the toil that brought them there."

"Of course!" said the Colonel, with a curious little smile. "For
rashness, I fancied, when they showed the first blade above the clod,
but I am less sure of it now. Well, the wheat is even finer."

A man who came up took