The man stirred, and looking at him became at once intent as he saw his face.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "Something else gone wrong?"
Edgar nodded.
"I'm sorry," he answered simply. "Put on your things and come out.
You had better get it over with."
In three or four minutes George left the house. Holding himself steadily in hand, he walked through the drenched grass toward the wheat. On reaching it, he set his lips tight and stood very still. The great field of grain had gone; short, severed stalks, half-buried in a mass of rent and torn-up blades, covered the wide stretch of soil where the wheat had been. The crop had been utterly wiped out by the merciless hail. Edgar did not venture to speak; any sympathy he could express would have looked like mockery; and for a while there was strained silence. Then George showed of what tough fiber he was made.
"Well," he said, "it has to be faced. After this, we'll try another plan; more stock, for one thing." He paused and then resumed: "Tell Grierson to hurry breakfast. I must drive in to the Butte; there's a good deal to be done."
Edgar moved away, feeling relieved. George, instead of despairing, was considering new measures. He was far from beaten yet.
CHAPTER XIII
SYLVIA SEEKS AMUSEMENT
It was a fine September afternoon and Sylvia reclined pensively in a canvas hammock on Herbert Lansing's lawn with one or two opened letters in her hand. Bright sunshine lay upon the grass, but it was pleasantly cool in the shadow of the big copper beech. A neighboring border glowed with autumn flowers: ribands of asters, spikes of crimson gladiolus, ranks of dahlias. Across the lawn a Virginia creeper draped the house with vivid tints. The scene had nothing of the grim bareness of the western prairie of which Sylvia was languidly thinking; her surroundings shone with strong color, and beyond them a peaceful English landscape stretched away. She could look out upon heavily-massed trees, yellow fields with sheaves in them, and the winding streak of a flashing river.