led in Manitoba have more
cattle now than they can count--they measure 'em by acres, Riles
says."

Breakfast and Harris's speech came to an end simultaneously, and the
subject was dropped for the time. In a few minutes Jim had his team
hitched to the tank wagon in the yard. The men jumped aboard, and the
wagon rattled down the road to where the engine and ploughs sat in
the stubble-field.

"What notion's this father's got about Riles, do you suppose,
mother?" asked Beulah, as the two women busied themselves with the
morning work in the kitchen.

"Dear knows," said her mother wearily. "I hope he doesn't take it in
his head to go out there too."

"Who, Dad? Oh, he wouldn't do that. He's hardly got finished with the
building of this house, and you know for years he talked and looked
forward to the building of the new house. His heart's quite wrapped
up in the farm here. I wish he'd unwrap it a bit and let it peek out
at times."

"I'm not so sure. I'm beginning to think it's the money that's in the
farm your father's heart is set on. If the money was to be made
somewhere else his heart would soon shift."

"Mother!" exclaimed the girl. In twenty years it was the first word
approaching disloyalty she had heard from her mother's lips, and she
could hardly trust her ears. It was nothing for Beulah to criticize
her father; that was her daily custom, and she pursued it with the
whole frankness of her nature. But her mother had always defended,
sometimes mildly chiding, but never admitting either weakness or
injustice on the part of John Harris.

"Well, I just can't stand it much longer," said the mother, the
emotions which she had so long held in check overcoming her. "Here
I've slaved and saved until I'm an--an old woman, and what better are
we for it? We've better things to eat and more things to wear and a
bigger house to keep clean, and your father thinks we ought to be
satisfied. But he isn't satisfied himself. He's slaving harder than
ever, and now he's got this notion about going West. Oh, you'll see
it will come to that. He knows our life isn't complete, and he thinks
more money will complete it. All the experience of twenty years
hasn't taught him any better."

Beulah stood aghast at this outburst, and when her mother paused and
looked at her, and she saw the unbidden wells of water gathering in
the tender eyes, the girl could no longer restrain herself. With a
cry she flung her arms about her mother's neck,