When they reached the Watson home, Mrs. Watson and Aunt Kate came out and thanked Mr. Braden profusely for his kindness in "givin' the childer a lift." Danny, who had been bored by the serious nature of the conversation, had gone to sleep, and was carried snoring into the house.
Mr. Braden admired the display of poppies and asters, which still made a brave show of colour against the almost leafless trees of the bluff, and when Pearl ran over to pick him a bouquet of asters, was it by accident—or does anything ever happen by accident—that she put in some leaves of sweet-mary?
CHAPTER XXIV
TRUE GREATNESS
A shipwrecked sailor, waiting for a sail;
No sail from day to day, but every day
The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts
—A blaze upon the waters to the east,
A blaze upon the waters to the west,
—but no sail.
——From Enoch Arden.
ALMOST every person in the neighbourhood was interested in Arthur Wemyss's new home which he had built on the bank of Plover Creek, a small stream that dawdled aimlessly across the prairie from Lang's Lake to the Souris River. Plover Creek followed the line of least resistance all the way along, not seeming to care how often it changed its direction, but zigzagging and even turning around and doubling on itself sometimes. Its little dimpled banks, treeless save for clumps of silver willow, gave a pleasing variety to the prairie scenery.
It was on one of the highest of these banks that Arthur had built his house, and it was a pleasant outlook for any one who loves the long view that the prairie gives, where only the horizon obstructs the vision.
Behind the house, which faced the setting sun, was an old "buffalo run," a narrow path, grass-grown now, but beaten deep into the earth by the hoofs of innumerable buffalo that long ago came down to the little stream to drink. It had been a favourite killing-place, too, for the Indians, as the numerous buffalo bones, whitened by the sun and frost of many seasons, plainly showed.
Arthur had made a fantastic "rockery" of skulls and shanks and ribs, and filled it in with earth, enough to furnish growth for trailing nasturtiums, whose bright red and yellow blossoms were strangely at variance with their sombre setting.