"Still, you mean to hold?" Carrie looked at him steadily, with a little gleam in her eyes.
"I almost think I do."
Carrie laid her hand upon his arm. The faint flush in her cheeks was born of pride. "Well," she said, "that pleases me. It is like you, Charley. Hold it, dear, every bushel, and, before you yield an inch, let them break you if they can."
She turned abruptly and glanced at the tall wheat which rolled back, dusky green with faint opal gleams in it, across the great level and over the swell of rise into the smoky crimson that lingered in the western' sky.
"It's yours," she said proudly. "You made it grow, and do you think I don't know what it has cost you? You have gone without sleep for it, and worn yourself to skin and bone. Perhaps you have always worked hard, but, I think, never quite so cruelly hard as you have done this year."
She stopped and gazed fondly on him. Then she went on.
"Oh," she said, "I understand—everything. Charley, dear, it isn't without a reason you are so thin and gaunt and brown, and your hands—the hands that have done so much for me—are hard and scarred. Still, I want them to hold on to what is yours. You have made the splendid wheat grow, and you won't let anybody rob you of it now."
Leland smiled, though it was evident that he was stirred.
"Well," he said, "it would be a little easier to stop them doing it if I knew where to get five thousand dollars, which is one thousand pounds. Of course, I owe a great deal more, but with that in hand to settle the odd accounts that must be met, I needn't force my wheat on the market for a month or so."
"Oh," said Carrie with a little laugh, "there will not be the least difficulty about the money. I am going to give it to you—two thousand pounds if you want it."