wn labour, applied to such scanty resources as the prairie
provided. But it was warm and snug, and, as they later on learned,
the wall and roof of sod were almost perfect non-conductors of either
heat or cold. The floor was of earth, but Mary Harris knew the
difference between earth and dirt, although the words are frequently
confounded, and her house was from the first a model of cleanliness
and order.

By this time the snow was all gone, except in north-facing nooks
along the ravine, and the frost was out of the sod in all places deep
enough to admit of plouging. As the stock were taking no harm from
the open air, thanks to the shelter of the ravine, Harris decided to
delay the construction of his stable until after seeding and to
proceed at once with the ploughing of his land. He had also to make a
trip to Arthurs' for seed grain, and to borrow a couple of sections
of drag harrows. With it all, by the middle of May he had sown
fifteen acres of wheat, and notwithstanding a heavy snowfall about
the 23rd, by the 1st of June he had added ten acres of oats. With his
help Mary had planted a small garden of potatoes and vegetables, and
a few flowers were springing up at the door of the house.

It was a life of hard, persistent work--of loneliness, privation, and
hardship. But it was also a life of courage, of health, of
resourcefulness, of a wild, exhilarating freedom found only in God's
open spaces. They had learned to know the animals of the field--the
cheeky gopher; the silent, over-industrious badger; the skunk,
unchallenged monarch of his immediate circle; the sneaky coyote,
whose terror is all in his howl; the red fox, softly searching amid
the grass for the nests of ducks or prairie chicken; and the rabbit,
curious but always gracefully elusive. Then there were the waterfowl,
infinite in number. The stuffed ducks on the dinner-table were
limited only by the amount of powder and shot which Harris cared to
spend on the pond at their door. At night, when the horses had been
unharnessed and dusk was setting in, he would slip his gun under his
arm and walk down among the willows. It was necessary only to wait.
Two graceful forms, feeding under a grassy bank, hearing a slight
rustle above, would shove with quick, silent stroke into the supposed
safety of their native element. Harris would peer through the dusk
for the brighter markings of the male, for only a game-murderer
shoots the female in the nesting season. Then, a