"Hello, farmers," he cried, "how goes the battle? An' the good wives? Building a little Eden in this wilderness, I'll warrant. Tell them to put another name in the pot, an' a hungry name at that. I haven't seen a white woman's meal I don't know when."
The friends gathered about the old-timer, plying him with questions, which he answered or discussed until the meal was over, holding his own business quietly in the background. But, with supper ended, his pipe in his teeth and his feet resting comfortably in the oven, he broached his subject.
"Ready for the road in the morning, Jack? Don't want to break up your little honeymoon, y' know, but the month is wearing on. Nothing but horseback for it now, an' they do say the settlers are crowding up something wonderful. The best land's going fast. Most of them will hold up now, with the roads breaking, but by slipping out on our horses we can locate an' file before the real spring rush opens. You should get some kind of shelter up before the frost is out of the ground, so's to lose no time from ploughing once the spring opens."
Harris needed no urging, and in the early morning the two men, with blankets and provisions, started out on horseback for the still farther West. The snow was now going rapidly; water stood in a thousand pools and ponds on the face of the prairie, or ran with swift noiselessness in the creeks and ravines, although the real "break-up" of the streams would not occur until early in April. By avoiding the sleigh-trails and riding over the open prairie fairly sound footing was found for the horses and a good opportunity given to observe the land. Harris soon found that more judgment was required in the selection of a prairie farm than he had supposed, and he congratulated himself upon having fallen in with so experienced a plainsman as McCrae. On the first day they rode over mile after mile of beautiful country, following the survey stakes as closely as possible, and noting their location from time to time by the lettering on the posts.
"This is good enough for me," said Harris at length, as their horses crested a little elevation from which the prairie stretched away in all directions, smooth as a table. "Isn't it magnificent! And all free for the taking!"
"It's pretty to look at," said McCrae, "but I guess you didn't come
West for scenery, did you?"
"Well, what's the matter with it? Look at that grass. If the soil wasn't all right it wouldn't grow native crops like that, would it?"
"The soil's all right," answered McCrae. "Nothing better anywhere, an' you can plough a hundred and sixty acres to every quarter-section. But this is in the frost belt. They get it every August—sometimes July. Shouldn't wonder but it'll be all right in time, when the country gets settled up, but most homesteaders can't afford to wait. We've got to get further West yet, into the higher land of the Turtle Mountain slopes. I know there's good stuff there that hasn't been taken."
And so they pressed on, until, in the bright sunshine, the blue line of the Turtle Mountain lay like a lake on the western horizon. Here McCrae began paying more minute attention to the soil, examining the diggings around badger holes, watching out for clumps of "wolf willow," with always a keen eye for stones and low-lying alkali patches and the general topography of the quarter.
"This is more rolling country, with more land broken up by sleughs an' creeks, but it's good stuff," he said. "It's early to make predictions, but I'll risk one guess. There are two classes of people coming into this country—men who are looking for wheat land, nothing but wheat land, an' men who want some wheat land an' some stock land. I predict that in twenty-five years the wheat farmers will be working for the mortgage companies, an' the stock farmers will be building up bank accounts. Now stock must have water, an' if you can get natural shelter, so much the better. A creek may break your land a little, but it's worth more than it costs."