"ME? Why, I never edited anything in my life!" cried McKenzie,
standing stock still on the platform.

"Pshaw! Come along," laughed Kennedy reassuringly. "You'll be
alright. It ain't hard to do."

CHAPTER XI

FROM THE RED RIVER VALLEY TO THE FOOTHILLS

It ain't the guns or armament nor the funds that they can pay,
But the close co-operation that makes them win the day;
It ain't the individual, nor the army as a whole,
But the everlastin' team-work of every bloomin' soul!
--_Kipling_.

At one of the early grain growers' conventions it had been voiced as an
ideal that there were three things which the farmers' movement
needed--first, a trading company to sell their products (with
ultimately, it might be, the cheaper distribution of farm supplies);
second, a bank in which they could own stock; third, a paper that would
publish the farmers' views. So that if the new Executive of the
Company had done little else than break ground for better financial
arrangements and a farmers' own paper, their record for the year would
have shown progress.

But when the second annual meeting of the Company was held they were
able to show that the volume of farmers' grain handled was almost five
million bushels, double that of the first year, while the net profits
amounted to over thirty thousand dollars. The number of farmer
shareholders had increased to nearly three thousand with applications
on file for another twelve hundred and a steady awakening of interest
among the farmers was to be noticed all over the West. All this in
spite of the general shortage of money, a reduced total crop yield and
the keenest competition from rival grain interests.

It had been apparent to the directors that if the business grew as
conditions seemed to warrant it doing, it would require to be highly
organized. Bit by bit the service to the farmer was being widened.
For instance, the nucleus of a Claims Department had been established
during the year; for under the laws governing the Canadian railway
companies the latter were required to deliver to terminal elevators the
amount of grain a farmer loaded into a car and to leave the car in a
suitable condition to receive grain. The official weights at the
terminal were unquestioned and if a farmer could furnish reasonable
evidence of the quantity of grain he had loaded, any leakage in transit
would furnish a claim case against the railway. During six months the
far