his mother set the little
caravan in motion. It was Martin who guided them to the creek, Martin
who decided just where to locate their camp, Martin who, early the next
morning, unloaded the wagon and made a temporary tent from its cover,
and Martin who set forth on a saddleless horse in search of Peter Mall.
When he returned, the big, kindly man came with him, and in Martin's
arms there squealed and wriggled a shoat.

"A smart boy you've got, Jacob," chuckled Peter, jovially, after the
first heart-warming greetings. "See that critter! Blame me if Martin,
here, didn't speak right up and ask me to lend 'er to you!" And he
collapsed into gargantuan laughter.

"I promised when she'd growed up and brought pigs, we'd give him back
two for one," Martin hastily explained.

"That's what he said," nodded Peter, carefully switching his navy plug
to the opposite cheek before settling down to reply, "and sez I, 'Why,
Martin, what d'ye want o' that there shoat? You ain't got nothin' to
keep her on!' 'If I can borrow the pig,' sez he, 'I reckon I can borrow
the feed somewheres.' God knows, he'll find that ain't so plentiful,
but he's got the right idea. A new country's a poor man's country and
fellows like us have to stand together. It's borrow and lend out here. I
know where you can get some seed wheat if you want to try puttin' it
in this fall. There's a man by the name of Perry--lives just across the
Missouri line--who has thrashed fifteen hundred bushel and he'll lend
you three hundred or so. He's willing to take a chance, but if you get a
crop he wants you should give him back an extra three hundred."

It was a hard bargain, but one that Wade could afford to take up, for if
the wheat were to freeze out, or if the grasshoppers should eat it, or
the chinch bugs ruin it, or a hail storm beat it down into the mud,
or if any of the many hatreds Stepmother Nature holds out toward those
trusting souls who would squeeze a living from her hard hands--if any of
these misfortunes should transpire, he would be out nothing but labor,
and that was the one thing he and Martin could afford to risk.

The seed deal was arranged, and Martin made the trip six times back and
forth, for the wagon could hold only fifty bushels. Perry lived twenty
miles from the Wades and a whole day was consumed with each load. It was
evening when Martin, hungry and tired, reached home with the last one;
and, as he stopped beside the tent, he noticed with surprise