Winston of the Prairie

fifteen hundred miles, and rose from her seat in a corner of the big first-class car. The car was sumptuously upholstered and its decorations tasteful as well as lavish, but

gold and nickel, and equable temperature formed a part of the sheltered life she was about to leave behind her, and there would, she knew, be a differ

ght have stayed there and reveled in ci

pacity, which is by no means so common, for extracting the most it had to give from the opposite one. Still, it was with a faint regret she prepared to complete what had been a deed of renunciation. Montreal, with its gayeties and luxuries, had not seemed so very

the furs fluttering about her on the lurching platform, the cold went through her like a knife, and the roofs of a little prairie town rose up above the willows the train was now crawling through. The odors that greeted her nostrils were the reverse of pleasant, and glancing down with the faintest shiver of disgust, h

and sun, hideous almost in their simplicity, from the white prairie. Paint was apparently an unknown luxury, and pavement there was none, though a rude plank platform straggled some distance above the ground down either side of the street, so that the citizens might not sink knee-deep in the mire of the s

ious steadiness in their gaze which vaguely suggested the slow stubborn courage that upheld them through the strenuous effort and grim self-denial of their toilsome lives. They were small wheat-growers who had driven in to purchase provisions or inquire the price of grain, and here and there a mitte

rous exterior, while as much of his face as was visible beneath the great fur cap was lean and commanding. Its salient features were the keen and somewhat imperious gray eyes and long straight nose, while something in the squareness of the man's shoulders and his pose set him apart from the prairie farmers, and sugge

r you, my dear," he said. "I don't know what we shoul

ess in her eyes and a faint warmth in her cheek, f

in the city, and they were all kind to me, but I think, h

kindly smile in his eyes as they left the station and crossed the track towards

get our mail," he said. "Mrs. Jasper

ched the long train roll away down the faint blur of track that ran west to the farthest verg

here is no use looking back, but I wonde

gh, and the girl's spirits rose as they swung smoothly northwards behind two fast horses across the prairie. It stretched away before her, ridged here and there with a dusky birch bluff or willow grove under a vault of crystalline blue. The sun that had no heat in it struck a silvery glitter f

his eyes. "You are not sorry to come back to this and Silverdale

m of its own, for while one is occasionally glad to get away from it, one is even more pleased to come home agai

o the devil in the old country for the lack of something worthwhile to do, though I am afraid

ully silent for several minutes while with the snow hissing

ns and capital debarred them from either a political or military career. He had settled them on the land, and taught them to farm, while, for the community had prospered at first when Western wheat was dear, it had taken ten years to bring home to him the fact that

a good deal, and left him a poorer man than he had been when he founded Silverdale. Maud Barrington had been his ward, and he still directed the farming of a good many acres of wheat land which she no

u can begin at the beginning--the price of wheat.

I am sorry I persuaded you to hold your crop. I am very much afr

he contrast between the present and the careless life she had lately led when her one thought had been how to extract the

n," she said. "Is t

is, and while I have not much expectation of an advance in

im steadily. "You me

at viciously with the whip. "He is also sufficient to cau

houghtful. "You fancy he

t is, you know that, while I founded it, Silverdale was one of Geoffrey Courthorne's imperialistic schemes, and a good deal of the land was recorded in his name. That being so, he had every right to leave

ush crept into her face. "I was sorry f

Still, the fact that the man may settle among us is not the worst. As you know, there wa

is not infrequently efficacious," said Miss Barrington. "Lance m

was past assistance when I arrived on the scene, but the devilish pleasure in the lad's face sent a chill through me. In the other, the gardener's lad flung a stone at a blackbird on the wall above the vinery, and Master Lance, who I fancy did not like the gardener's lad, flung one through t

cross the prairie which was growing dusky now, "

ht so much trouble on everybody connected with them. Further, it is unfortunate that women are not infrequently more inclined to be gracious to the sinner who repents, when it is worth his

essly met her uncle's glance. "The

that the gambler, cattle-thief, and whisky-runner who ruined every man and woman who trusted him will b

, when the girl looking into his eyes smiled a little. "Yes," she

oken, and had he not adhered steadfastly to his own rigid code, he would have been a good deal richer man than he was then. Nor did his little shortcomings which were burlesqued virtues, and ludicrous now and then, greatly detract from the stamp of dign

d, and sighed a little, while once more the anxious look crept int

usk, and a great silence and an utter cold settled down upon the waste. The muffled thud of hoofs, and the crunching beneath the sliding steel seemed to intensify it, and there was a su

is is very different from the cold of Montreal. Still, you'll

h outlying barns, granaries, and stables, looming black about it against a crystalline sky, Silverdale Grange grew into shape across their way. Its rows of ruddy windows cast streaks of flickering orange down the trail, the baying of

ll. The chilled blood surged back tingling to her skin, and swaying with a creeping faintness she found refuge in the arms of a gray-haired lady who stooped and kissed her gently. The