"No," she admitted, "I haven't any."
She said it demurely, but there was a just perceptible something in her voice which might have warned the man had he been addicted to taking warning from anything, which was, however, not the case. It was, in fact, his trouble that he seldom thought about what he did until he was compelled to face the consequences; and it was, perhaps, to his credit that he had after all done very little harm, for there was hot blood in him.
"Well," he said, "I'm not going to grumble about those extra three miles, but you were asking what land I meant to break this spring. What put that into your mind?"
"Our folks," said Sally candidly. "They were talking about you."
This again was significant, but Hawtrey did not notice it.
"I've no doubt they said I ought to tackle the new quarter section?" he suggested.
"Yes," assented Sally. "Why don't you do it? Last fall you thrashed out quite a big harvest."
"I certainly did. There, however, didn't seem to be many dollars left over when I'd faced the bills."
The girl made a little gesture of impatience. "Oh," she said, "Bob and Jake and Jasper sowed on less backsetting, and they're buying new teams and ploughs. Can't you do what they do, though I guess they don't go off for weeks to Winnipeg?"
The man was silent. He had an incentive to work hard which she was not acquainted with, and he had certainly done so, but the long, iron winter, when there was nothing that could be done, had proved too much for him. It was very dreary sitting alone evening after evening beside the stove, and the company of the somnolent Sproatly was not much more cheerful. Now and then his pleasure-loving nature had revolted from the barrenness of his lot when he drove home from an odd visit to a neighbour, stiff with cold, through the stinging frost, and, arriving in the dark, found the stove had burned out and water frozen hard inside the house. These were things his neighbours patiently endured, but Hawtrey had fled for life and brightness to Winnipeg.