"Wall?" asked Hank curtly, looking about him and taking in every feature. "It's the top end of the valley, I kin see that. Rails running north kin easily pass out, seeing that the two ridges on either side don't run together. But they can't cut off to right or left. Ef the rails comes along this way, why, in course they passes right through this location."
"Along by the river," said Sam quickly. "Hank, it's an easy rise all the way. The river ain't got no current to speak of, which tells the tale easily. As to the rails coming along into the valley down south, why, that is almost certain, as sure as one can take it. Anyway, me and my mates agreed that it was more than likely, and so we arranged to take up holdings here. There's four of us already, Claude and Jim and Joe makes seven, and come spring-time there's nigh twenty more married men to join us."
"Wall?" asked Hank, not as yet clear as to what was Sam's meaning. "Where's the difference between this and other settlements? You takes up land, and the rails come along. Good! Up goes the value of the land, as it aer sartin to do. You get a reward for foresight; after that, where's the difference?"
Sam had evidently sought for the question, for he rubbed his hands together eagerly and gripped Hank's sleeve.
"Jest here," he declared with enthusiasm. "Instead of some twenty of us starting to work our sections separately, and going mighty slow in consequence, we're forming a corporation. Each man who takes land will pool money with the corporation. With that money we buy implements, horses, cattle, everything that's needed. We divide our numbers into parties, and come the spring one of 'em sets to work to build the shacks, another does the ploughing, while a third'll get to at the irrigation channels."
"Ah!" gasped Hank. "This aer new."
"Sam worked the scheme out all alone," declared Mrs. Fennick, with energy, causing her lord and master to blush again.
"It sounds just splendid," cried Hank. "Wall? What more? I kin see that there's an advantage in working ground on the corporation system. If you've got the timber cut already, it stands to reason that ten men working on a shack can put it up more'n ten times quicker than one man all alone. If there's twenty shacks wanted, ten men can put 'em up heaps faster than twenty fellers working on their own. And irrigation too! That sounds fine; it's doing well elsewhere."
Hank spoke but the truth there. A far-seeing Dominion Government and an all-powerful railway company have already seamed portions of Canada with canals and ditches with which water is borne to lands hitherto useless. Their forethought has converted, and is fast converting, barren soil into country which in parts already bears smiling crops and happy homesteads. As for the corporate system, if the Dominion Government has not attempted that—and one must admit that it is a question more for individual settlers—it has at least other worthy schemes. A would-be settler can now sail for the Dominion, to find there a quarter section prepared for his coming, with the shack built, the well dug, and some forty acres broken and seeded. For this he pays a reasonably small sum down, and the rest by small instalments. Think of the huge advantage of such a system. In place of finding naked soil, and having first to build a shelter and then break the land, a settler finds a home in readiness and crops already sprouting. Then consider Sam Fennick's proposition.
"It aer bound to go with a bang," declared Hank, pushing his skin cap to the back of his head and scratching his forehead. "It aer jest tremendous."