his, the wide landscape was without life
and desolate. Festing, however, knew it would not long remain a silent
waste. A change was coming with the railroad; in a few years, the
wilderness would be covered with wheat; and noisy gasoline tractors
would displace the plowman's teams. Moreover, a change was coming to
him; he felt that he had reached the trail fork and now must choose his
path.

He was thirty years of age and a railroad builder, though he hardly
thought he had much talent for his profession. Hard work and stubborn
perseverance had carried him on up to the present, but it looked as
if he could not go much farther. It was eight years since he began by
joining a shovel gang, and he felt the lack of scientific training. He
might continue to fill subordinate posts, but the men who came to the
front had been taught by famous engineers and held certificates.

Yet Festing was ambitious and had abilities that sprang rather from
character than technical knowledge, and now wondered whether he should
leave the railroad and join the breakers of virgin soil. He knew
something about prairie farming and believed that success was largely a
matter of temperament. One must be able to hold on if one meant to win.
Then he dismissed the matter for a time, and set off again with a firm
and vigorous tread.

Spring had come suddenly, as it does on the high Saskatchewan plains,
and he was conscious of a strange, bracing but vaguely disturbing
quality in the keen air. One felt moved to adventure and a longing for
something new. Men with brain and muscle were needed in the wide, silent
land that would soon waken to busy life; but one must not give way to
romantic impulses. Stern experience had taught Festing caution, his
views were utilitarian, and he distrusted sentiment. Still, looking back
on years of strenuous effort that aimed at practical objects, he felt
that there was something he had missed. One must work to live, but
perhaps life had more to offer than the money one earned by toil.

The red glow on the horizon faded and an unbroken arch of dusky blue
stretched above the plain. He passed a poplar bluff where the dead
branches cut against the sky. The undergrowth had withered down and
the wood was very quiet, with the snow-bleached grass growing about its
edge, but he seemed to feel the pulse of returning life. The damp sod
that the frost had lately left had a different smell. Then a faint
measured throbbing came out of the