By Right of Purchase

by Harold Bindloss

There was, however, in the meanwhile, nothing that they could do, and they commenced to growl inarticulately as they glanced at one another with fierce, set faces. Here and there one of them twisted the end of the wet bag he held, to give him a firmer grip, or fidgeted aimlessly with his shovel. The rest frowned and coughed, for which there was some excuse, or stood woodenly still, according to their temperament. Leland, however, swung round towards the row of binders that stood half buried among the oats.

"That's one thing we overlooked, and they have got to take their chances now," he said. "We couldn't get a team to face the smoke, and nobody could harness them if we did. If they're burned, we're going to have trouble to get the harvest in."

Gallwey, who stood near him, made a sign of agreement. Every binder in the country was in use just then, for, since machines are remodelled yearly, implement dealers stock no more than they expect to sell, and let on hire any by chance left upon their hands. It was accordingly evident that, if these were burned, his comrade could not replace them, and, in face of the wages usually paid, nobody could garner the harvests of the Northwest without the binder, which not only cuts the grain, but ties it into sheaves. It is by saving costly labour alone that the prairie farmer pours his wheat into the markets of the East, and retains a small margin for himself, in spite of fifteen hundred miles railway haulage, and three thousand by sea. It is the gang-plough and the automatic binder that have opened up the prairie.

"You couldn't get another anywhere in time to be of use," he said.

Leland, however, now laughed harshly. "Well," he said, "after all, I needn't worry about them. It's no great comfort, but I'm not likely to want them if they're burnt. In that case, there'll be no crop to harvest."

It seemed to Gallwey that this was probable enough. The oats stood half as high again as most of those he had seen in England, on thick, flinty stems that had dried and yellowed under a scorching sun, while behind them rolled the wheat that was almost as ripe. There had been no rain for days, and very little dew, and now, when a fierce, hot wind was driving down the fire on them, the whole crop seemed ready for the burning. The guard-furrows would check the flame, but they could not stop the sparks, and sheaves and tall stubble lay spread like tinder for them to fall among.

Then once more the wind descended, and a long wreath of smoke, blotting out everything, drove on. A great shower of sparks blew forward out of the midst of it, and, when it was rent aside, there sprang up a great crackling blaze. It leapt forward with a roar, and then broke up, running low among the grass, while the smoke whirled past the men, choking and blinding them, thicker than ever.

"Stand by!" cried Leland. "There's the first! Beat it out! Hold on! Don't crowd in on them!"

His voice was lost in the crackle of the fire, and that was the last intelligible thing he said for some time. A further hail of sparks came out of the smoke, and a blaze sprang up among the stubble. It spread, even while two men fell upon it with wet grain bags, but flickered out when a third reinforced them with a shovel. Then it grew intolerably hot, and the action became general.

The fire was almost up to the guard-furrows, and a rain of burning particles blew on before it. Incipient blazes broke out where they fell, and men fought them savagely in the blinding smoke. Now and then they fell over each other, and one here and there was struck by his comrade's shovel, but nobody heeded that. Epithets that at other times would have been answered by the clenched fist passed unnoticed; and choking, gasping, whirling bag or shovel, they fought on. Now and then the smoke thinned a little, and the fierce red light beat upon their dripping faces and bowed figures, only to fade into a confused opacity again that made but faintly visible the forms flitting like phantoms amidst the vapour. Here and there a man cried out, but nobody heard what he said, and his feeble voice was drowned in the crackle of the flame. Leland appeared to be wherever the fire was fiercest, once knocking Gallwey down as he came floundering through the stubble towards a spreading blaze.