When darkness came, the field was clear, but still long lines of wagons awaited their turn to unload. Under the magic touch of dusk men appeared as grotesque shadows, gnomes, silhouetted against the skyline. Behind the separator a veritable mountain of straw arose to pinnacled peaks and towers, whose members occasionally toppled over and slid down the stack only to be rebuilt higher than ever. The exhaust from the engine merged into a steady roar, while a scarlet flame glowed steadily under the spark-arrester on the smokestack. The separator became a vibrant, roaring shadow. Its whine and moan were higher and louder than ever in contrast to the silence of the night; above it still towered the figure of a man, distorted almost beyond recognition by the darkness and dust clouds, but still the directing genius of it all.
Finally, the last bundle passed into the hungry maw, and a moment later the weigher tripped for the last time. The high whine began to fall away—lower and lower until it became a gentle rumble, a purr, a long-drawn-out sigh, and silence broken only by the gentle hiss of steam.
Grahame expected Ironheart would come to the house for a settlement, but an hour went by before the same young man who had talked to Jane the night before came to the door. Up in Grahame’s room he took from his pocket a bunch of storage-tickets and laid them on the bed.
“The boss says there are two thousand bushels at the elevator in Barliton, and four hundred and eighty here in the granary.”
Grahame made a hasty mental calculation—two thousand, four hundred and eighty bushels at two dollars and sixty-five a bushel—
When Grahame had collected his scattered senses, he turned to the young man and said:
“Did Mr. Kinear tell you what the bill was? I can’t give him a check, but I can indorse enough of these tickets over to him to meet it.”
Before Grahame had finished, his caller was through the door and his voice came back as curt and terse as the voice of Ironheart himself:
“There is no bill.”
The wind moaned along the eaves, and the whistling rasp of snow sounded against the siding, but within there were warmth and happiness, for Grahame and Jane had won the last round.