By Right of Purchase

by Harold Bindloss

Men toil hard at harvest the world over, but, perhaps, nowhere is the work so fierce, or demands so much from those engaged in it, as on the wide levels which stretch back from the wheat lands of Western Canada into the Dakotas across the border. There flesh and blood must keep pace with unwearying machines, the latest and most ingenious that man's brain can conceive. The reaper has gone, the binder that is a year or two out of date is broken up, and, while the machine does more and more, the strength of the men who serve and drive it remains the same. For all that, none of them can afford to be left behind. They have no use for the incompetent in that country, and, though at times the pace is apt to kill, man must strain overtaxed muscle and sinew in the tense effort to keep up with wooden arms that never ache, and with clashing steel. The toilers are, for the most part, well paid and generously fed, and they give all that is in them, from pride of manhood, and in some degree from sheer necessity. The ban that is still a privilege has never been lifted yet, and, while wheat may glut the markets and flour be cheap, it is alone by the sweat of somebody's strenuous effort that man has bread to eat.

Leland was aching all over, but that was, of course, nothing new to him, and he turned to Gallwey, who was standing close by, when a man came up to lead his team away.

"If you'll put the saddle on Coureur, Tom, and bring him out, I'd be obliged," he said. "I'll sit here and smoke a pipe before I ride out to meet Carrie and Mrs. Annersly. They should be well on their way from Custer's now."

Gallwey ventured to expostulate with him. "I believe I heard Mrs. Leland tell you not to come; and if you are going to start again at four o'clock to-morrow, one would fancy you had done about enough," he said. "I'm quite sure I have."

"Well," said Leland, "I want a look round, anyway. There has been a good deal of smoke about most of the day, and there's a big grass-fire, or probably more than one, somewhere out on the prairie. The wind's freshening, too."

That, at least, was evident, for a rush of hot breeze came up out of the growing darkness, and during the last few hours the sun had been hidden by driving haze. Gallwey, who felt the wind upon his dusty cheek, turned and glanced down the long row of sheaves which ridged the edge of the prairie, for he guessed what his comrade was thinking. Behind the oats there rolled long, rippling waves of wheat, and, though they were dusky now, the daylight would have shown that they were tinted with bronze and gold. The tall stems were hot still, and the prairie sod was white and thick with fibrous dust.

"Everything is about as safe as you could make it," he said. "We have good guards, and you ploughed check-furrows outside of them."

"I did," said Leland, drily. "I cut them across the track of the usual winds. This one's an exception, and I have seen a fire jump guards that were 'most as wide. There would be trouble if a spark got in among the stubble, and I'm taking no chances just now."

Gallwey made a little gesture of concurrence as he once more glanced down the long rows of sheaves. The stubble stood among them knee-high and above the strip of ploughing that cut it off from the prairie, for straw has no great value in that country.

"Well," he said, "I daresay you are right. It's a little hard to see how a fire could get in, but, after all, one can never make quite sure of anything."