“Thet’ll do,” interrupted the farmer. “This is my wagon here. Throw in yer bundle an’ stretch yerself around town fer an hour, an’ then we’ll hit the trail. But Ah forgot to tell you, it’s fifty miles tuh my farm, an’ the comp’ny out there ain’t much writ up in the sassiety papers.”
“The farther the better,” said Burton. There was a touch of bitterness in his voice, and the old man looked at him keenly.
“Love—or law?” he asked, at length.
Burton flushed but did not reply, and the farmer continued, with a sudden kindness in his speech, “Never mind, lad. This country’s full of fellows who’re tryin’ to git away from one or t’other of them two irresistibles—love an’ law. But God help the fellow thet gits hit by both. When a chinook crosses the path of a nor’wester there’s trouble fer everybody.”
Burton accompanied his new employer about the town for a couple of hours. The farmer was making purchases at the stores and implement houses, and as he did not expect to be in the town again until after the threshing it was some time before his business was completed. The young man stood beside him in the store, and his practical knowledge of quality and values astonished the old farmer. At length the purchasing was finished, and with the double wagon-box piled high with groceries, canned goods, dry-goods, hardware, harness, binder twine, machine oil and all the other sundries demanded by the activities of the harvest season, the two men started on their journey farmwards.
The sun was well into the western sky before they left the town, and in the hot July afternoon the horses had to be allowed their pace. The roads were alive with traffic, farmers driving in as much as a hundred miles for their fall supplies. Scores of other wagons, loaded as was this one, were to be seen; great stacks of lumber were dragged slowly along by four- and six-horse teams; a veritable procession of mowers, rakes and binders, some loaded on wagons and some running on their own wheels, stretched along the country road, the procession here and there blocked into divisions by giant steam or gas tractor outfits with their long, slow-crawling caravan of paraphernalia.
Sundown found our travellers approaching a diminutive farm house, where the team of their own accord turned in at the open gate.
“This is whar Zeb Ensley lives,” said the farmer. “His shack is small, but his hospitality would fill a hemisphere, an’ Ah gen’rally allow to put up with him goin’ an’ comin’. Zeb’s English, but he’s past the moultin’ stage, an’ he’s awful white. After an Englishman moults—gits rid of his unnecessary feathers—they ain’t no better neighbour.”
By this time the team had stopped in front of an enclosure made by standing mill slabs on end, which was all the shelter provided for Mr. Ensley’s horses. The host himself was beside the wheel, and placed a brown hand in the farmer’s as the latter clambered down from the high spring seat.
“How are you, Mr. McKay? Back this far, safe, I see, with a big load and a likely looking farm hand. Won’t you introduce me?”