"You need have no compunction, Ormesby. I really made only one successful attempt at housebreaking in my life," he said. "Do you accept the offer?"
"Yes, with many thanks; though I don't quite see why you make it in writing," I said. "There are, however, a good many other things I don't comprehend just now, and sometimes I feel that I am being moved here and there blindly to suit other persons' unknown purposes. The position does not please me."
Boone laughed. "There is something in the fancy. You are the king's bishop, and I'm not sure that as yet even the players quite know their own game. Of course you are aware that Lane holds a power of attachment against you?"
"At present there is nothing but the prairie sod to attach, though I don't see why he does not at once grab as much as he is entitled to of that," I said. "If I get enough time I may be able to pay him off after harvest."
"I hope you will," was Boone's answer; and, changing the topic, he entertained us with the quaintest anecdotes.
Some time had passed since that evening, and spring had come suddenly, when I commenced my plowing. Hitherto little wheat had been grown so far West, but the soil was good, and I knew that sooner or later there would be grain elevators in Crane Valley. Though the sub-soil was still frozen, the black clods that curled in long waves from the mold-board's side were steaming under the April sun; and as I tramped down the quarter-mile furrow my spirits rose with the freshness of the spring. It was good to be up and doing again, and the coming months of strain and effort would help me to forget. Thorn and Steel, who were also plowing, shouted jests as they passed, and it was with a contentment long strange to us we rested at noon. Some distance divided the breaking from the house, and we lay on the warm grasses, basking in the radiance of the cloudless sun over our simple meal.
The whole prairie was flooded with it, the air sweet and warm, and we recommenced our task with pulses which throbbed in unison with that of reawakening nature. The long months of darkness and deathlike cold had gone, green blades presaging the golden ears would soon shoot upwards from every furrow, and one drank in the essence of hope eternal in every breath of air. Anxiety faded into insignificance, and one rejoiced in the mere possession of physical strength, while the tender greenness checkering the frost-nipped sod testified again that seed time and harvest should not fail so long as the world rolled onward from darkness into light.
We came home more cheerful than we had been for months, but I felt an instinctive foreboding when I saw Cotton talking to Sally beside the corral fence. She was apparently bantering him, but there was satisfaction in his face, as, after some jests of hers, he glanced at the stripes on his sleeve.
"I guess he's much too proud to look at you. They've made him a corporal!" said Sally.
There was a contrast between us. Spring plowing is not cleanly work, and the mire which clung about our leggings had also freely spattered our old jean overalls. Cotton was immaculate in new uniform, and sat, a trim, soldierly figure, on his freshly caparisoned horse.