"He'll pay for this!" cried Wallie, chokingly.
"You can't do nothin' with him but deal him misery. He's got too much money and pull fer you. Do you know what I think's gnawin' on him?"
"My taking up a homestead——"
"That, too, but mostly because Helene dressed him down for sellin' that locoed team to you. He's jealous."
Even in his despair Wallie felt pleased that any one, especially Canby, should be jealous of him because of Helene Spenceley.
"He aims to marry her," Pinkey added. "I wisht you could beat his time and win yerself a home somehow. I don't think you got any show, but if I was you I'd take another turn around my saddle-horn and hang on. Whenever I kin," kindly, "I'll speak a good word for you. Throw your saddle on your horse and step, young feller. I'm gone!"
The faint hope which Wallie had nursed that the damage might not be so great as he had feared vanished with daylight. Not only was the grain trampled so the field looked like a race course, but panel after panel of the fence was down where the quaking-asp posts had snapped like lead-pencils.
As Pinkey and Wallie surveyed it in the early dawn Wallie's voice had a catch in it when he said finally:
"I guess I'm done farming. They made a good job of it."
"I'm no 'sharp' but it looks to me like some of that wheat would straighten up if it got a good wettin'."