"What do you mean, Hi?"
"I guess I am crazy, too," the young fellow said. "I believe my fortune, as well as Battick's, is wrapped up in that wheat. Somehow, from the very first time I saw the seed in his house, the night I arrived in this neighborhood, I have felt that the new wheat meant much to me."
Sister looked at him, puzzled.
"I really wish you would say right out what you mean, Hi Strong!" she exclaimed.
"I am day dreaming, I suppose," he told her. "But when I look over this billowing field I can see thousands of acres of the same grain, all in one mowing, and a crop that will fill vast granaries with wheat. There would be a fortune in a single crop of such size."
"Oh, Hiram, you are thinking of the wheat fields of the great Northwest," Sister said in a low tone. "Are you dreaming of going so far away from us all?"
"Sister," said the young farmer seriously, "I set out to farm Mrs. Atterson's Eighty with the idea of making that a stepping-stone for something bigger. I have got the bigger thing; but it is not big enough. I am still working for another man. I want to work for myself."
"But—but it takes so much capital to run one of those great wheat ranches."
"I know. I couldn't expect to begin at the top. If I begin for myself it must be at the bottom. But I have more than a thousand dollars saved, and I have a quarter interest in Battick's new wheat. Before this time next year, Sister, I ought to have at least five thousand in cash!
"When I have that much money I am going to strike out for myself—on my own hook. Whether it will be in the Northwest or not I don't know. But Hiram Strong, Sister, is going to be his own man before he gets through, not another fellow's hired hand!"