Torn branches hung from the poplars, slender birch-twigs lay in heaps, and banks of hail, now changing fast to water, stretched out into the wet, sparkling plain.
Harding's face was very stern as he picked up a handful of the icy pieces.
"With a strong wind behind it, this stuff would cut like a knife," he said. "Well, it has saved our putting the binders into the grain."
Devine made a sign of gloomy agreement. There was no hope left; the crop they had expected much from was destroyed.
They clambered into the wagon and drove for some time before the first farmstead began to lift above the edge of the plain. In the meanwhile the hail that glistened in the grass tussocks melted away, and only a few dark clouds drifting to the east marred the tranquillity of the summer evening. The men were silent, but Devine understood why his comrade drove so hard, holding straight across dry sloos where the tall grass crackled about the wheels, and over billowy rises where the horses' feet sank deep in sand. He was anxious to learn the worst, and Devine feared that it would prove very bad.
At last they crossed a higher ridge and Harding, looking down, saw his homestead lying warm in the evening light. He had often watched it rise out of the prairie, with a stirring of his blood. It was his; much of it had been built by his own labor; and he had won from the desolate waste the broad stretch of fertile soil that rolled away behind it. But he now gazed at it with a frown. As the buildings grew into shape, dark patches of summer fallow broke the gray sweep of grass, and then the neutral green of alfalfa and clover, running in regular oblongs, appeared. Behind, extending right across the background, lay the wheat, a smear of indefinite color darker than the plain. That was all they could see of it at that distance. They were going fast, but Harding lashed the horses in his impatience.
Devine, however, looked more closely about, and it struck him that the ground had dried with remarkable rapidity; indeed, if he had not felt the hail, he could hardly have believed the plain had been wet. For all that, not venturing to hope for fear of meeting a heavier shock, he said nothing to his comrade, and presently they dipped into a hollow. They could not see across the ridge in front, and Harding urged his horses savagely when they came to the ascent. The animals' coats were foul, spume dripped from the bits, and their sides were white where the traces slapped, but they breasted the hill pluckily. The men were grim and highly strung, braced to meet the worst. To Harding it meant ruin and the downfall of all his plans; to Devine his wedding put off. It might be some years before he made good, and he feared that he could no longer count on his comrade's help. If Harding were forced to give up his farm, he might leave the prairie.
At last, when the suspense was telling upon both, they reached the summit and Harding stood up to see better.
"Why, the ground has not been wet!" he exclaimed, unbelieving. "The hail has not touched us!"
It was true; the fire and the ragged ice had passed over that belt of prairie and left its wake of ruin farther on. Still, though the wheat was none the worse, it was none the better. It stood as when they had seen it last, limp from drought and cut by blowing sand. Disaster was only suspended, not removed. But there was hope.