the next morning, and, under the delicious still
coolness of the Indian summer, we increased the strain on nerve and muscle
and cut down the grocery bill, though I insisted on feeding the horses
even better than before. It is never economy to stint one's working
cattle, especially when one demands the utmost from them, besides being a
procedure which is distasteful to any merciful man. However, though we had
to hire more horses, wondering how we would ever pay for them when the
contract was finished, the track crept on along the treacherous slope,
where we scooped out a double width as basis, winding among the birches in
glistening, sinuous curves, while the end of the valley grew nearer every
day. Again Harry and I lapsed into the excitement of a race against
adversity, because unless we were well out on the open prairie before
winter bound the sod into the likeness of concrete there could be no hope
of even partly recouping our loss. Even Johnston seemed infected with our
spirit; but while we generally worked in dogged silence, he had ever a
jest on his lips.

One evening--and the days were shortening all too rapidly--when I sat
tired and dejected on an empty provision case, a rail-layer brought in
several letters, and, as usual, they were all for me. Harry stood
bare-armed, with the dust still thick upon him, just outside the entrance
of the tent, holding a spider over our little stove, and glanced half
regretfully toward the budget. No one ever seemed to write to Harry. The
first was from Jasper. He had visited Brandon and Winnipeg on business,
and wrote in his usual off-hand style.

"I've been in to see those dealers, taking my best broker along, to
convince them that we only raised solid men in this section," it ran.
"Thought I'd enlighten them about you, and the broker laid himself out to
back me. He gets all my business--see?--while you can't beat a Winnipeg
broker at real tall talking. I should say we impressed them considerably;
or perhaps it was the big cigars and the spread at the hotel. Said they'd
sense enough to know a straight man when they saw him, and they'd give you
plenty time to pay in. So all you've got to do is to sail right on with
the track-grading. The boys were saying down to Elktail that Fletcher and
his father-in-law don't get on, and there's going to be trouble there
presently. I think the old man started in to reform him, and Fletcher
don't like unlimited reform."

"Just like Jasper," s