Mowbray contended that the grass was his, because it had long been cut for use at the Grange; and Harding replied that, as the land was unoccupied, neither had any prescriptive right and the hay could be harvested by the firstcomer. When the Colonel grew angry, Harding yielded the point and suggested that the sloos be mown turn about. To this Mowbray agreed reluctantly, because he saw he could not keep in front of a rival who had with perverse unfairness provided himself with better implements.
After the hay was gathered Harding's new buildings had to be roofed, and when the house grew insufferably hot Hester baked and cooked and washed in a lean-to shed.
In the meanwhile, the grain was ripening fast, and when the riotous Northwest wind began to die away the oats turned lemon and silver, and the wheat burnished gold. The mornings were now sharply cold, and as the green sunset faded the air grew wonderfully bracing.
Harding and Devine had been working steadily for fourteen hours a day, but they must nerve themselves for a last tense effort. After the great crop had been hauled to the elevators there would be time to rest, but until this was done the strain both were feeling must be borne. The new binders were got out when the Ontario harvesters, who had been engaged by Harding's agents, began to arrive, bringing with them a Chinese cook. Western harvesters are generously fed, and Harding would not have his sister overtaxed.
Soon after he started his harvest, Beatrice returned from Toronto. It was late afternoon when she drew near Allenwood. She was tired with the long journey, but she did not object when Lance made a round which would take them past Harding's farm. He said the longer trail was smoother.
The sun hung large and red on the horizon; the air was clear; and the crimson light raked the great field of grain. In the foreground the stooked sheaves, standing in long ranks, cast blue shadows across the yellow stubble; farther back the tall wheat ran, it seemed, right across the plain, shining in the sunset like burnished copper. Above the crimson on the prairie's edge the sky was coldly green.
At first it was the magnitude of the field and its glow of color that struck the girl. Harvest scenes were not new to her, and, indeed, she seldom gazed on one without feeling stirred; but she had never seen a harvest like this. It filled her with a sense of Nature's bounty and the fruitfulness of the soil, but as her eyes grew accustomed to the glaring light she noticed signs of human activity. The splendid crop had not sprung up of itself. It was the reward of anxious thought and sturdy labor, and she began to appreciate the bold confidence of the man who had planted it.
Along the wall of wheat moved a row of machines, marshaled in regular order and drawn by dusty teams. She could see by the raw paint that most of them were new; and, leaning back in her seat, she listened to their rhythmic clink. Noting their even distance, and the precision with which the sheaves they flung aside rose in stooks behind them, she saw that there was nothing haphazard here. The measured beat of this activity showed the firm control of a master mind. No effort was wasted: action had its destined result; and behind this thought she had a half-conscious recognition of man's working in harmony with Nature's exact but beneficent laws. Duly complied with, they had covered the waste with grain. Glancing across it, the girl felt a curious thrill. The primeval curse had proved a blessing; seed-time and harvest had not failed; and here, paid for by the sweat of earnest effort, was an abundance of bread.
Moved as she was, she had a practical as well as an imaginative mind, and she noted the difference between Harding's and the Allenwood methods. What he had told her was true: her friends could not stand against such forces as he directed.
"It's worth looking at," Lance remarked. "I wanted you to see it because Harding's being talked about just now. I can't explain how he has broken so much ground with the means at his command, but it's a triumph of organization and ability."