the message, if you went after I had gone?"

"NO," said Sadie firmly. "She must send it now."

Charnock looked hard at her and nodded. "Well, perhaps it's a good plan.
Meddling is sometimes dangerous, but one can trust you."

Sadie, wrapped in furs, drove across the prairie next afternoon, and
found Helen at home. The latter looked rather forlorn and dispirited,
and Sadie felt that she had undertaken a delicate task.

"Bob has come home for three days," she said by and by. "He can't stop
longer, but I thought you'd like to know how they are getting on with
their contract."

"Stephen writes to me," Helen replied with a hint of sharpness.

"I guess he does," Sadie agreed. "Still, from what Bob says, they
haven't much time for letters, and he talked to me about the work all
last evening. He could leave when Stephen couldn't because he's the
junior partner and doesn't know much about railroading yet."

Helen smiled, rather curiously. "Do you feel you must explain why your
husband came home and mine did not?"

For a moment or two Sadie hesitated. It looked as if she had not begun
well, but she braced herself. If her tact were faulty, she would try
frankness.

"Yes," she said; "in a way that was what I did come to explain, though
it's difficult. In the first place, I know why Stephen couldn't come."

Helen waited, and then, as Sadie seemed to need some encouragement,
said, "Very well. I think I'd like to be convinced."

"The reason Bob came and Stephen stayed begins with the difference
between them. We know them both, and I want to state that I'm quite
satisfied with Bob. That had to be said, and now we'll let it go. But
they are different. Bob will work for an object; for dollars, to feel
he's making good, or to please me. Your husband must work, whether he
had an object or not, because that's the kind of man he is."

"Bob's way is easier understood," Helen rejoined. "Besides, Stephen is
working for money enough to farm again on the old large scale."

"He is; but you don't understand yet, and I want to show you why he
feels he has got to farm. Stephen's the kind we have most use for in
this country. In fact, he's my kind; perhaps I know him better than you.
Give him a patch of pine-scrub or a bit of poor soil in a sand-belt and
he'd feel it his duty to cultivate it, no matter how much work it cost.
Show him good wheat land lying vacant or rocks that block a railroad,
and he won't rest till he starts the gang-pl