ood breakfast--porridge, steak, potatoes, corn-cakes and
molasses--at which I wondered, because I had not discovered as yet that
there is no difference on the prairie between any of the three meals of
the day.

When it was finished, my companion, who gave me directions as to how to
find Coombs' homestead, added:

"Remember what I told you about harvest, and, if you strike nothing
better, when the wheat is ripe come straight back to me. I'm Long Jasper
of Willow Creek, and every one knows me. I like your looks, and I'll give
you double whatever Coombs pays you. Guess he'll have taught you
something, and I'm not speculating much when I stake on that. You'll fetch
Jackson's crossing on the flat; go in and borrow a horse from him. Tell
him Jasper sent you. Your baggage? When the station agent feels energetic
he'll dump it into his shed, but I guess there's nothing that would hurry
him until he does. Now strike out; it's only thirty miles, and if you go
on as you've begun you'll soon feel at home in this great country!"

I thanked him sincerely and departed; and, as I passed the station, I saw
that the agent evidently had not felt energetic yet, for my two boxes lay
just where they had been flung out beside the track. As a preliminary
experience it was all somewhat daunting, and the country forbidding, raw,
even more unfinished than smoke-blackened Lancashire, and very cold; but I
had found that every one seemed contented, and many of them proud of that
new land, and I could see no reason why I too should not grow fond of it.
At least I had not seen a hungry or a ragged person since I landed in
Canada. Besides, Carrington Manor was less than fifty miles away, though
it was evident now that a great gulf lay between Ralph Lorimer, the
emigrant seeking an opportunity to learn his business as farm-servant, and
the heiress of Carrington.

CHAPTER IV

AN UNPLEASANT APPRENTICESHIP

By this time the sun was high, and, fastening the skin coat round my
shoulders with a piece of string, I trudged on, rejoicing in the first
warmth and brightness I had so far found in Canada. But it had its
disadvantages, for the snow became unpleasantly soft, and it was a relief
to find that the breeze had stripped the much thinner covering from the
first of the swelling rises that rolled back toward the north. Here I
halted a few minutes and surveyed my adopted country.

Behind lay the roofs of Elktail, some of them tin-covered and flash