"Which is the one you like?"
The man laughed. "There are a good many that appeal to me. Once it was collecting sealskins off other people's beaches, and there was zest enough in that, in view of the probability of the dory turning over, or a gunboat dropping on to you. Then there was a good deal of very genuine excitement to be got out of placer-mining in British Columbia, especially when there was frost in the ranges, and you had to thaw out your giant-powder. Shallow alluvial workings have a way of caving in when you least expect it of them. After all, however, I think I like the prairie farming best."
"Is that exciting?"
"Yes," said Wyllard, "if you do it in one way. The gold's there—that you're sure of—piled up by nature during I don't know how many thousand years, but you have to stake high if you want to get much of it out. One needs costly labour, teams—no end of them—breakers, and big gang-plough. The farmer who has nerve enough drills his last dollar into the soil in spring, but if he means to succeed it costs him more than that. He must give the sweat of his tensest effort, the uttermost toil of his body—all, in fact, that has been given him. Then he must shut his eyes tight to the hazards against him, or, and we can't all do that, look at them without wavering—the drought, the hail, the harvest frost. If his teams fall sick, or the season goes against him, he must work double tides. Still, it now and then happens that things go right, and the red wheat rolls ripe right back across the prairie. I don't know that any man could want a keener thrill than the one you feel when you drive the binders in!"
Agatha had imagination, and she could realise something of the toil, the hazard, and the clean thrill of that victory.
"You have felt it often?" she said.
"Twice we helped to fill a big elevator up," said Wyllard quietly. "Still, I've been very near defeat."
The girl looked at him thoughtfully. It seemed that he possessed the power of acquisition, as well as a wide generosity that came into play when by strenuous effort success had been attained, which, so far as her experience went, were things that did not invariably accompany each other.
"And when the harvest comes up to your expectations, you give your dollars away," she said.
Wyllard laughed. "You shouldn't deduce too much from a single instance. Besides, that Pole's case hasn't cost me anything yet."