On that home-coming no eyes must peer. Upon Helen McClure's face lay the ineffaceable scars of her dark vigil. But her heart was healed by the miracle of the storm.
And Ned? The tonic of love and youth more than pulled him through.
XXVI
THE RED KNIGHT SINGS OF THE FAIRIES
The sun was sinking behind a sky of golden fleeces. Through the dazzling cloud-rims streamed the lava of sunny light, flooding The Qu'Appelle with its restful glow. Below lay the lake, a rippling basin of molten gold.
Everywhere the shadowy greens of the crests were checkered with square patches of ripe wheat. Some fields were mellow for the sickle. Upon the morrow the binders would hum the overture of the harvest symphony.
Two watchers sat on the Grant lawn drinking in the liquid glow of the west. Down upon them rolled a field of Red Knight, covering the terrace to their feet. The light of a blazing summer and its dews and rains lay before them, stored in a forest of magic heads. The grain was standing thick and erect, its cream-gold surface dappled with pursuing waves of shade and shine. The eyes of the watchers rested on the sea of plumes. They were talking of it.
"Wonderful! Indeed!" exclaimed Margaret softly. "It is as wonderful as Ned and his father think it is."
"Yes!" agreed Andy. "I for one believe it will far surpass their hopes. And yet I am scarcely qualified to judge since the ride of a certain girl to the rescue of The Red Knight. His precious gold kernels were the sesame that opened her eyes. I have a natural bias toward him but he is a marvel all the same and the king of cereals. The scientists, the cereal breeders, even the millers agree with the Pullars and the farmers in pronouncing The Red Knight a wonder grain. I believe with old Edward Pullar that it will be the elixir of life to millions of farmers. It is interesting to conjure just what this will mean to the future of our country. Beyond a doubt it will draw the strong of the earth to the virile North."
Andy paused musing for a time. Then he said gently: