The two men’s hands met in a moment’s firm grasp, and the next Burton knew he was tramping down the road he had first seen that summer evening six weeks before.
Once fairly on the road Burton began to cast about for some definite plan of action. He determined he would walk into town and there ascertain where homestead lands were available. Then he would go to the nearest Dominion Lands Office and file on a quarter section away in some remote region, where there would be little chance of his identity being discovered. Here he would commence life anew, under a new name, as he felt it would not be safe to file as Raymond Burton, and here he would hope in the years to come to outgrow and outlive the tragedy of his young life.
A friendly haystack loomed through the gathering dusk, and Burton slept in its shelter until morning. He awoke stiff and hungry, and half regretted his refusal to accept Mr. McKay’s offer of a horse and saddle. But he remembered a farmhouse a few miles along the road, and there he was given breakfast. He pressed on vigorously through the day, and before another nightfall turned in at Zeb Ensley’s shack. The Englishman was watering his horses at the well, but he looked up and recognised his visitor of a few weeks previous.
“Hello, Ray!” he called, cheerily. “On your way back to town? I suppose Mr. McKay’s work is advanced sufficiently to let you go, although, upon my word, I confess I thought you’d likely become a permanent part of his organisation. Especially,” he added, with a sly twinkle in his eye, “especially as I happen to have met that young daughter of his.”
“Well, it didn’t work out that way, Mr. Ensley, although she’s as fine a girl——”
“Mr. Ensley only visits here on Sundays,” interrupted the other. “The gentleman in charge is known as Zeb. But let us get these plugs in and then we’ll see what the cook can do for us. Fried eggs, I expect, with warmed potatoes and dried apples, table d’hôte.” He was unbuckling the horses’ harness as he spoke, and presently slipped it from their backs and turned them loose for the night.
Once inside the shanty Burton discovered that “the cook” was Ensley himself. But no time was wasted in conventions, and in a few minutes a plain but appetising supper was on the table. “Come, dig in,” was the host’s invitation, and there was a lull in the conversation as the hungry men plied the viands.
“So you’ve left McKay’s,” said Ensley, after the first insistent demands of appetite had been satisfied. “Where are you bound for now—back East?”
“No, I think of taking up a homestead, as soon as I can get a map showing open land, and learn where I may make application.”
“Good!” said the Englishman, with genuine enthusiasm. “I’m always glad to see bright fellows taking to the homesteads. Most fathers think they do their boys a favour when they coop them up in an office or a shop, but I tell you where this country wants its bright men, some of them, at any rate, is out on the sod. There is a mob of little interests growing up, each with its little coterie of promoters and parasites, but the big industry here will always be agriculture, and it is the big industry that needs the big brains. Besides, where is the life of town or city that a free man would accept in exchange for a hundred and sixty acres to grow in? I always have an eye for the homestead openings, and perhaps you can get all the information you want right here.”