ith storage and freight charges to boot.

Little wonder he grew tired; little wonder he grumbled. Who, after
all, could blame him for fathering thoughts that ranching was not all
it was supposed to be?

Yet the land was the best in the country; the conditions for fruit
growing--with a proper system of irrigation--unsurpassed in the
Province; the climate, the surroundings for home-making, ideal.

It was simply the lull time in the era of progress; simply the time in
between small things and things of magnitude; the time when the little
man was liable to be forced to the wall and the big man would have to
cling on despairingly; the time when organisation and brains would
have to step in and take the reins.

Autumn faded and early winter promised with its damp fogs which, in
the night time, froze quickly, covering houses, trees and fences with
a white crystalline hoar which dropped like snow at the first faint
blush of the next morning's sun. But oblivious of winter and without
forebodings, men continued to buy at a price and sell for more.

The winter came, with its snow fence-high, and its cold north wind
compressing the thermometer to twenty below and binding the earth as
with an iron crust; the winter came with its days of dazzling sunshine
and its cloudless skies over a pall of white; with its nights when
great fleecy clouds scudded across the face of a brilliant moon,
causing long shadows and streaks of pale light to chase each other
across the white, frozen fields and over the undulating ranges;--but
the majority of the men who lived by buying and selling heeded it not
nor did they admire its beauties. Some were browsing in the warmer
clime of California and those who remained behind sat in the comfort
of their clubs, still buying at a price and selling for more, or
planning their early spring campaigns.

Graham Brenchfield was in Los Angeles. John Royce Pederstone held
office in Victoria, and Eileen--but for an occasional flying
visit--remained with her father.

Phil and Jim--no longer the Swede's apprentice and the irresponsible,
occasional drunk, but men whose opinions counted, whose lead was worth
following, whose actions carried force--continued to paddle quietly
and cautiously down the Stream of Conditions toward the Cataract of
Consequences. Far away they could hear the roar of the rushing,
falling waters which, so far, others failed or refused to hear.

With the first blink of spring, the old frenzy