Lorimer of the Northwest

FIRS

oose and stately crane, went by on their long journey from the bayous by the sunny gulf to the newly thawn tundra mosses beside the Polar Sea. Legion by legion they came up from the south and passed, though some folded their weary pinions to rest on the way, and for a few short weeks every sloo was dotted with their plumage. Then they went on,

ermine, scurried, piebald and mottled, through its shadows. Then, while the wheat grew taller, and the air warmer every day, the prairie assumed an evanescent beauty which it presently put off again, for the flush faded from the grasses, and only the birch bluff remained for a refuge filled with cool neutral shadow in a sun-parched land. It was now time for the hay cutting, and we drove the rusty mower here and there across the dazzling plain, upon which willow grove and bluff stood cut off from the l

nted hay, we rode home content across the darkening prairie, which faded under the starlight into the semblance of a limitless dusky sea, while the very stillness voiced its own message of infinity. Neither of us would speak at such times. Harry had a turn for emotional sentiment, I kn

we proposed to prepare a thanksgiving feast for all our neighbors, Jasper, who had ridden over, grinned as he said, "Better lie low and pay off that mort

on them from the engine to make the feathers come off; and it amused me to wonder what Alice would think if she saw me sitting, flecked all over with down, among the feathers, or Harry standing grimed with dust and soot, peeling potatoes by the bucketful beside his field kitchen. When the thrashers departed our lard

n, for it was nearly a twelve hours' journey to the railway town. We reached it finally, after a tiresome ride; and then for two 59 hours we waited shivering among kicking and biting teams under the gaunt elevators before we could haul in our wagons, and for perhaps fifteen minutes there was a great whirring of wheels. Then they were drawn forth empty, and presently we

orgetting he was in Western Canada, tried to slip a silver half-dollar into the waitress' hand, who dropped it on the floor, perhaps because in that region wages are such that the hireling is neither dependent on nor looks

emember the letter. Now go along, and settle matters with the proprietor. Sit down, Minni

ides, she seemed ill at ease and startled when I drew out a chair for her, and I too was singularly ill at ease. We had the long room to ourselves, howeve

story; and she had surely changed far more than I. The Minnie I used to know was characterized by a love of misc

ad begun to live. The endless drudgery in the mill, the little house in the smoky street, and the weary chapel three times each Sunday, were crushing the life out of me. You understand-you once told me you felt it all, and you went out in search of fortune; but wh

ho had been discharged from the Orb mill for inattention to his duties, and I wondered that

, who said I was a child of the devil, and when Tom told me there was false accusation against him, and nobody must know we were going, we slipped away 61 quietly. I was too angered to wr

r hands with a gesture that expressed fierc

llars now and then-and I think that all that was good in me died with it. So when he found work watching the heater of a store a few h

as was stamped on her face; although I remembered having heard Jasper say that a weight cle

for bringing you out here, and I heard that

-she was very young after all-but she ke

away. No; it was Tom-and Tom, God help us both, has lost his head and drinks too much when he

nd some better work for him; and you 62 will write home and tell them

prairie. Part of our harvest, we knew, was on board that train, starting on the first stage of its long journey to fill with finest flour the many hungry mouths that were waiting for it in the old land we had left behind. The lights died out in a hollow far away on the prairie

sh, and were proud of it. Two, with a certain courtliness which also was foreign to that district, helped an elderly lady down from a light carriage luxuriously hung on springs, which must have been built specially at the cost of many dollars, and the rest led their well-groomed horses toward the store stables, or strolled beside the track jesting with one another. None of them wor

ontent with building up the finest property thereabout, he aspired to rule over a British settlement, and each time that he visited the old country at regular intervals several young Englishmen of good family and apparently ample means returning with him commenced breaking virgin prairie. They were not all a success as farmers, the settlers said, and there were occasional rumors of revolt; but if they had their difference

lived and dressed very plainly at Fairmead that year. Then amid a grinding of brakes, with lights flashing, a long train rolled in, and the group stood, fur cap in hand, about the platform of a car from which a dain

ects doing homage to her! Ralph, I say, you must not stare at the girl like

jacket as though it were the dolman of a cavalry

r, Miss Carrington des

y of a comrade of my own kind would be comforting in that assembly; and then

ettled. Oh stay, Raymond, this is Mr. Lorimer-he was kind to me in England, and I want you to invite him to your approaching festivities. You

Met Mr. Lorimer already; pulled my wagon up most kindly when the team was stalled in a rav

iage, while I fancied that some of the 65 younger among her bodyguard regarded us jealously. Harry and I stood silent until the cava

of thing, you know. Ralph, you stalked up like a bear; must have been dazed by too much brightness, because you never even rais

o then, and the whole scene could scarcely have lasted five minutes, but