Chapter XVIII: Wilderness--Planning for Next Year

Next morning Sam roused the Traileys early. After eating a substantial breakfast, they all set off to find their land. The top section of the wagon box was removed, and their own two spring-seats, plus another borrowed one, were taken along for the sake of the additional comfort they afforded.

The weather was perfect. The cool, clear brilliance of the atmosphere; the stimulating early morning breeze; the entire absence of conventional restraint; the prospect of viewing their very own piece of land, all caused their spirits to soar with joy and hope.

The appealing strangeness of everything entranced them; and the almost unlimited freedom to go anywhere, and do anything, they pleased, filled them with a sort of youthful wonder. Even Martha Trailey, although she was inclined to apply the acid test to everything, was agreeably impressed.

"It certainly makes a body feel like bustling about and accomplishing something, doesn't it, William? What a perfect wash-day!"

Trailey pulled down the string, on the end of which he for the time being was flying his thoughts, considered a moment, then said he hoped she hadn't forgotten to bring food supplies along in case of accident.

Esther and Bert were sitting together on the hindmost seat, alternately sipping at the heaven in each other's eyes, and making joyous mating noises. The Traileys occupied the middle seat, and Sam, who manipulated the ribbons, the front one.

A surveyor who was in the camp gave them a bee line due north with his transit. "Fix your eyes on that gap in those hills," he said, "and keep as straight for it as you can. Then, when you think you've done ten miles, look about for a mound. The grass being burned off will make it easier for you to find one." This conversation took place atop of a ridge slightly north of camp. It all sounded simple enough.

"But 'ow shall we know when we've gone that far?" asked Sam.

The surveyor glanced at the team, and then at the men, and, after pondering a couple of seconds, replied: "I guess you will have gone far enough when you've been travelling four hours. You'll be within a mile or so of your land, anyway--unless, of course, you run into trouble." He was a short, merry, affable man, clear-eyed and burnt as dark as an Indian. So off they set.

For nearly four hours they drove through a country whose topography was about half open prairie, and half brush and slough. Their hopes sank a little. The district wasn't even pretty--the very first test most Barr Colonists invariably applied to their surroundings. A few early mosquitoes tormented them; big yellow, and small grey, brutes of a malignancy only equalled by their pronounced fondness for thick, rich, English blood.

The quality of the soil, or the nature of the subsoil, bothered their innocence not at all. What they desired above everything else was for their "bit of land" to be like a park; not like the Dukeries, nor like Chatsworth; but something infinitely more alluring, if only because of its freedom from artificiality.

Once Sam said jestingly: "Look! there's a rippin' plyce ter live," and he pointed at a patch of delicately-tinted aspens which were growing right out of a little gleaming "lake" upon which a pair of mallards sailed as stately as swans.

"Oh, how sweet!" cried Esther. Bert was just then squeezing her hand beneath the folds of her coat--a light-blue, satiny affair.

"Yes, isn't it?" echoed Bert, as he admired Esther's splendid profile.

"Ah-h," sighed Trailey, lovingly regarding a speck of egg-yolk which nestled between the fourth and fifth buttons of his somewhat wrinkled waistcoat--"it's over four hours since we started--it must be. Perhaps we'd better have our lunch and find the land afterwards; we could do it much better then."

"Fancy living there!" exclaimed Esther, "in a nice little bungalow, with a rustic summer-house, and a tennis lawn, and a swimming pool, and a few perfectly darling----"

"Kids to feed, and mend for, and wash," snapped her mother.

"----Lambs, I was going to say, mamma," corrected Esther. She was blushing like a rose. "Oh, how can people exist in cities!"

"How can they exist out here; that's what I want to know. Someone who is clever"--casting a sidelong, scornful look at her husband--"kindly tell me that. This isn't a page in a novelette, my girl, if you think it is. Day after day money going out, and nothing coming in; it's wicked."

Sam guided the horses round a clump of Saskatoon brush, and rose brush, which screened some freshly-excavated badger holes.

"You've 'it the blinkin' nyle on the 'ead, missis. People can't eat trees, an' sloughs, an' lawn tennis"--and observing the gladsome pair on the rear seat basking in each other's presence, Sam added mischievously--"nor love, neither."

Presently, after choosing a few more ideal building sites; and after murdering some of the more ravenous of the mosquitoes; and after Martha Trailey had lectured at considerable length to a very unsympathetic audience on the disagreeable topic of first getting hold of some money before they could spend it, they found themselves emerging into a different kind of country.

Swamps became less frequent; trees more scattered; wide stretches of undulating prairie spread out all round them; and, instead of the skyline being limited to a view over the top of smudges of budding red willow, it occasionally extended to enormous distances.

"I'm sure we've gone far enough," complained Trailey for the twentieth time. He was examining his watch again, and wondering, seemingly, what was preventing the hands from moving.

"All right, guv'ner," said Sam; "there ain't much daht abaht it nah. We've bin travellin' four 'ours and an' 'alf, ter myke up fer dodgin' rahnd them sloughs back there," and the little man pulled his own watch out and exposed it to the gaze of his admiring friends. "Hinglish lever," he explained, proudly, "made in Switzerland--bought it orff'n a Rushin' Jew fer thirty bob; runs like a blinkin' top, not 'alf, it don't. Lissen to it tickin'!"

Fortunately, the wagon was not in motion just then, so there was only the squawking of seventy or eighty crows in some trees overhead competing with the watch's rhythmic beating, which, besides being plainly audible, positively jarred the wagon.

"Splendid," laughed Bert; "but put it away, Sam, old boy, now it's served its purpose; it's a trifle too ostentatious for these surroundings."

With these playful remarks, and, realizing that further spooning was for the time being impossible, if not unwise, Bert gently disentangled himself from love's web of bliss and jumped to the ground.

Taking the risk of losing themselves on empty stomachs clean out of the hands of an extremely unreliable Fate, they first fortified themselves with food. It was a pleasant little picnic. Hard-boiled eggs, bannock and jam, and coffee without milk and sugar (the last-mentioned made on a campfire with water from a neighbouring "trout stream"), put them all in a very optimistic humour.

No wonder the minds of the Barr Colonists were filled with idealism. Only a few days before, not a speck of verdure had been visible anywhere. Now, almost magically, the trees not killed by the fire burst into leaf.

"Isn't everything lovely?" cried Esther, as she looked rapturously about her.

Beauty unfolded itself like the buds on the aspens, and as quickly. What in the morning, on the branches of the trees, were merely clusters of wax-like, tight-closed shells, were by evening myriads of fluttering leaves of the tenderest green. The long, warm days of a single week transformed the prairie from a blackened and ugly cinder to a delicate loveliness. Here was Nature in all its primeval beauty, its freshness and wildness still unsullied.

Robins called to each other from the swaying tops of trees. An occasional rabbit rushed across from one thicket to another in a wild burlesque of speed, as if it had somewhere urgent to go--then sat still for half a day. A pair of hawks, with motionless wings, circled in the agate sky. With a strange mixture of daring and innocence, gophers sat up like squirrels and squeaked defiance in thin, piercing notes. Egotistical wood-partridges strutted about, openly defying all laws of self-preservation--dainty bits of vanity; they must have known that feather ruffs were then all the rage.

After William Trailey had annihilated a very profound void within himself, he suggested, with his accustomed acumen, that he should stay and mind the camp while the others cast about for survey mounds.

"A good arrangement," agreed Bert. They failed to remember that it was quite safe to leave their stuff unguarded, seeing that for hundreds of miles around them there was scarcely a soul; but the habits of civilization, which numbers theft among its minor attributes, still persisted.

So Sam set off in one direction, and Mrs. Trailey, very gingerly, in another; whilst Trailey, as arranged, minded the horses and the other things with dreamful fidelity. Esther and Bert started out separately, but, finding solitude very inimical to the discovery of corner stakes, they quickly came together again, sat down, said what a lovely day it was, and then commenced a dialogue packed full with hidden meanings.

Very soon a shrill halloo from the direction in which Mrs. Trailey had gone brought Sam hurrying towards her.

"Here's one," she said, pointing to a burnt stick which jutted up from the ground among a number of large-sized badger holes.

"That ain't a corner post, missis. Them post-s they put rahnd these farms is made of iron, wiv a piece of tin on 'em."

"Ridiculous, Sam!" retorted Mrs. Trailey. "How can a post be made of iron?"

"Don't know, ma'am, but that bit of wood ain't wot we're lookin' for."

The task they had set themselves was not unlike the searching for a nest in a ten-acre field. The odds were against them. Nevertheless, it was the only method they could use, apart from securing the services of a competent surveyor, or land guide.

Before long, corner posts having steadfastly refused to show themselves, Sam wandered along to confer with Bert. Clearing his throat loudly to signal his approach, he came upon the love-smitten pair round the bend of a poplar bluff. They were apparently absorbed in watching the antics of a couple of crows building a nest of sticks in one of the trees of a wood opposite.

"We can't find no blinkin' corner post-s," said Sam--"can you?"

"No," replied Bert, with a very straight face, "we've had no luck at all. What d'you suppose we'd better do?--move on a little farther?"

Sam thought a moment. "Can't do nothink else, I suppose. We---- Hey! Wot's this!" He stood looking down at a big, square hole which had obviously at some time or another been excavated by a man with a spade.

"What's what?"

"Why, this 'ole," returned Sam, pointing to a square, grass-grown depression at his feet. There were three similar ones to match it, all geometrically placed and equidistant.

The lovers stood up. Looking at the knoll upon which he and Esther had been sitting, Bert burst out laughing.

"Why, it's a bally survey mound, dash my wig if it isn't; and we've actually been sitting on it all the time. There's the stake--see!"

Esther was so delighted that she had to lean against her lover for support. "How lucky!" she said sweetly. "It may be the corner of your land, Bertie--our land," and she gently squeezed her companion's arm as she added: "Wouldn't it be splendid to think of those dear little crows guiding us to it? It would be quite like Elisha--or Joshua, I forget which--being fed by the ravens, wouldn't it, Sam?" Esther turned to Sam, smiling happily.

Sam had a vague idea that she was referring to something in the Bible, about which he possessed but hazy notions. All he really knew about the good book was that he had once seen one of his acquaintances passionately kiss a copy in a police court, and then swear his name was Johnson when he knew for a fact his last name had been Smith.

The pair of crows, boasting even less Biblical knowledge than the little Cockney did, screamed and chattered with rage at being molested in their house-building activities. Bert stooped down and read the figures on the little tin plate, which was pierced by the iron survey stake, and then inspected a map he had pulled from his pocket.

"We are only a couple of miles from our land, Sam. That's a bit of good luck, eh? You must have driven the team almost due north this morning. Fancy that blighter yesterday taking us all over creation!"

"'Ow abaht goin' the uvver two miles?"

"Oh, we can guess at that near enough. The land is due north from here. It will be in that direction." Bert glanced quickly at the sun, then pointed to where the prairie spread out, beyond a few scattered bluffs, into a huge, open country. Through the openings between the trees, the vista seemed to extend over the edge of the world. They returned to their camp to consult with Trailey. After communing with the spirits, that gentleman would very likely be in excellent fettle for making some useful suggestions. Except in matters to do with the party's commissariat, his innocuous advice was never heeded by the others, although for courtesy's sake he was always consulted.

The mosquitoes were playing terrible havoc with him, yet he still slept. He was flat on his back. A handkerchief covered his face, and his thick, podgy hands were clasped across his waistcoat. Where the handkerchief rested on his nose was the spot chosen by three or four very intelligent mosquitoes as an ideal place to drill for blood. Others had taken a keen fancy to his white, smooth wrists; yet others, the obtuse ones, to his beefy ankles decked out in home-knit socks of rugged texture.

"Wake up, dad!" called Esther to her beloved parent. She gently drew the handkerchief off his face. "We've almost found the land!"

Trailey opened his eyes, stared at the vivid blue sky above him, sat up, blinked a few times, then slowly came to life.

"Where are we, my dear?" he yawned, as he unconsciously attacked his wrists with his fingernails, from which operation he appeared to derive exquisite pleasure. Then he felt of his nose.

"Can you see anything wrong with my nose, Esther? I've been dreaming I was tied down fast in a beehive."

"The mosquitoes have bitten you, dad, that's all," laughed Esther. "It'll be better when it's swelled, and it's doing that now. Pain always subsides after swelling. But, come along, Sam's getting the horses ready, and I'm going to pack up." Assisted by Bert, Esther began to clear away the remains of the banquet.

"By Jove! these bites are painful, Esther; and the itching is maddening," groaned Trailey, scratch his wrists and ankles vigorously.

"That shows they're getting better, dad," laughed Esther, with that perfect sympathy for which very young women are noted. Curiously, she herself was not the slightest bit bothered by the mosquitoes.

"I hope it does," said Trailey miserably. "Have we anything I could put on the bites, my---- Oh! here's your mother; she'll know what to do!"

Martha Trailey, red-faced and irritable, strode into camp.

"It serves you right, you lazy good-for-nothing, you." She had obviously overheard the few last remarks. "Here we've been walking our legs off while you've been fast asleep. Don't deny it!"--Trailey half-opened his mouth to yawn--"I can always tell when you are going to lie. Just fancy a man ever dreaming of lying to his own wife! I'd sooner have a man who comes home late at night than I'd have a liar. Oh, dear, I wonder why it should always be poor me who gets the trouble! Other women's husbands may drink on the sly, but they never lie to their wives, like you were just going to do to me. Mrs. Lightfoot-Mott, who lived next door to us on the Boulevard, said her husband had never once told her a lie. There was a nice man for you! Quiet, unassuming, took his children out for walks on Sundays, thought the world of his wife, and never drank. He simply worshipped money, though. And wasn't she a cat! Tattle! You couldn't believe a single word she said. And she'd no more idea of how to dress her children than----"

Neither had William Trailey any more intention of lying to his wife than he had of going into the diplomatic service. He was much too distressed by his bites to pay a great deal of attention to what she was saying. Having no settled abode was fast making Martha Trailey unbearably fretful. With no home to scrub, and wash, and cover up with old newspapers from the dirt, she was as unhappy as a cat with sticky fur.

Trailey did an unusual thing for him. He got up in the middle of his wife's speech and abruptly walked away to the imitation trout stream, where he began diligently to bathe his nose and wrists and ankles, an occupation from which he extracted some temporary relief.

Sam soon put the horses in the wagon, and, after everything was loaded up, drove over to the recently-discovered survey mound.

Here the problem of correctly striking the course of the final lap presented itself. A little deviation, a very slight overstepping of the mark, or an under-estimation of the distance, might cause them endless trouble. Bert's brow clouded. Esther was alarmed.

"What's the matter, darling?" she whispered. "You don't feel ill, do you?"

He had already given the present matter some hasty consideration. Since discovering the corner stake, he had compelled his brain to focus itself on the devising of a way of them travelling a farther two miles with as little error as possible. He would much rather have amused himself with his charming companion, and left the task to Sam, but driving the horses kept the latter sufficiently busy. Besides, there was a smattering of geometry needed now.

"Three thousand five hundred and twenty yards from here is our south-east corner, eh, Sam?" The south half of section thirty-six, township fifty-one, range one, west of the fourth meridian, was the "bit of land" Barr had generously allotted to them aboard the S.S. _Lake Manitoba_ in mid-Atlantic.

Sam nodded and looked tremendously erudite. Bert said: "How would it be to try that surveyor's dodge with the wagon-wheel--counting the revolutions, y'know?"

Sam remembered hearing about this experiment at Headquarters, but he was very foggy regarding it, so he continued looking wise. Bert pondered.

"I wonder what the exact circumference of this hind wheel is. Got a tape measure anywhere, Esther?"

Mrs. Trailey said her tape measure was half-way down one of the packing-cases, back at the camp. Esther said she was so sorry not to have one, but would a hairpin be of any use. Trailey sighed and sat down on a knoll to rest. Bert stood beside the wagon. He knew he was approximately six feet tall, so he said to Sam, pulling off his cap: "How far from the top of my head is the top of the wheel?"

"Abaht a couple of foot," replied Sam, looking up and down between the crown of Bert's blonde head, and the wheel's rim.

"Must be a four-foot wheel, then," said Bert. "Standard size, probably. Good." After a little mental arithmetic, which resolved into nothing but a fuzz in his head, he worked out an abstruse problem on the back of an envelope. "That's four yards round the wheel. Four into thirty-five hundred and twenty, goes--what? Eight hundred and eighty. That's it, Sam."

"Wot are yer reck'nin'?"

"Nothing," muttered Bert, checking his figures carefully.

"Thought so. 'Ello! Wot's the matter wiv the ole man!" Everybody turned to look at William Trailey, who was enormously agitated about something.

"Martha! Martha! Come and help me," he moaned. "Oh, be quick! Millions of insects are crawling up my legs. I'm alive with them."

Trailey had merely fallen asleep on an ant-hill. Swarms of big black ants with wicked-looking red heads crept all over him. Nothing like this had ever come their way before. The little brutes were evidently debauched. Trailey grasped bunches of his trousers, and his waistcoat, in his agony, only to release them for fresh grips elsewhere.

"I'm alive! I'm alive!" he groaned in horror. "What's the best thing to do, Martha? They're all inside my vest, under my arms, and crawling up--ugh-h-h-h--my back," he shuddered.

"Oh, what can I do?" cried Mrs. Trailey, as she tore his coat off, and then his waistcoat, and inserted her hand down inside the back of his shirt, in a noble--though exceedingly timorous--attempt to clutch the voracious ants out in handfuls. Meanwhile her husband was becoming frantic, chiefly as a result of the frightful, crawling sensation. The little beasts had dispatched scouts to explore this monumental acquisition of food. These it was which had about reached the victim's collar-bone, and were making preparations for entering his whiskers.

Esther brought her singular presence of mind to the rescue as usual. Approaching quite near to her tortured sire, she made several suggestions, some sensible, but most of them idiotic; then she saw an ant on her ankle. Abandoning her father to his fate, she dithered four times, screeched, pointed to her foot, called on Bert to save her, saw that her lover was extremely well-placed for her reception, then calmly closing her eyes fell back into his willing arms.

In spite of every effort to defeat the ants, Mrs. Trailey was beaten. She acknowledged it.

"I can't do any more for you, William," she sobbed--"unless we make a fire and throw you on it. But it's judgment on you, you may depend. It's an omen. You'll be this way all your life--on and off; you see if you're not. It's a plague on you for your wickedness," and Mrs. Trailey picked two ants from her tortured husband's neck courageously, threw them on the ground savagely, and then stamped on them. "There, you horrible little brutes," she uttered from behind clenched teeth, "that finishes you."

But Trailey's lucky star had only hidden itself behind a fleeting cloud. Sam jumped down from the wagon, and took charge of the situation.

"Watch the 'orsis," he commanded Bert, "an' you, ma'am, get aht of the way, please," then, grasping the distracted Trailey's arm, and assisting him to his feet, he said sympathetically: "Come on, guv'ner; come wiv me," and off they made for a hidden slough, of which there were plenty about, where he stripped his whimpering charge naked, swilled him down with double-handfuls of cold water; and, while the tormented man gasped and choked and coughed, he shook, squeezed, and finally drowned the ants out of his clothes.

When the excitement had subsided, Bert reluctantly let go of Esther's waist and went on with his mathematical calculations. He tied his handkerchief tightly round a spoke of one of the rear wheels of the wagon, near the rim, and then turned to Esther again.

"Will you ride in the wagon, Esther, and count the number of revolutions the wheel makes? When it has gone round eight hundred and eighty times, tell Sam to stop. Make a mark on the wagon for each hundred, so you won't lose count"--handing Esther a pencil--"then if we've travelled due north we shall be quite close to our land. It should be fairly easy. The country is open beyond those trees."

Esther smiled understanding, and held out her arms for her instructor to assist her into the wagon. She was only a very moderate tennis player, and swimmer; and had never walked above twenty-five miles in one day in her life, so, naturally, she found climbing into a wagon rather difficult.

Mr. and Mrs. Trailey both expressed a wish to ride, so they, too, scrambled aboard. Bert walked behind the wagon a little way, to help Sam to keep a straight course, or one as straight as the gently-swelling prairie would permit. They had previously determined that a blue knob on the distant sky-line was as nearly north as could be judged. The little Cockney fixed his eyes grimly upon it, and forthwith set the jolting geometrical apparatus in motion.

The brush land soon terminated. Suddenly they came out on a sort of shoulder, whence the prairie sloped away to the north and east for an immense distance. A huge region unfolded itself before them. They bumped along, winding round impassable places which every now and again persisted in getting in their way. Esther counted religiously, sometimes in a whisper, sometimes mentally, then, to give herself confidence, right out loud. She regretted missing the beauty of the scene, which from the corner of her eyes she was vividly aware of.

At length she exclaimed. "There--that's it." Sam stopped.

"Go a little farther, Sam," ordered Bert, "to allow for the curves and dips."

The Traileys were utterly silent. Once or twice his excruciating itching almost forced William Trailey to seek relief in outcry, but his wife, noting the symptoms, quickly snubbed him with a look. She was intensely occupied with the study of the neighbourhood. Not being particularly responsive to Nature's masterpieces, not big ones especially, she kept her lips shut tight. A look of derision was in her eyes.

Burned bare of all old vegetation, the ground was as smooth as a recently-mown meadow, and presented no great hindrance to the discovery of their identification mound. For a certainty their land was within a few hundred yards of them. At last they stopped.

Leaving the two older people to their thoughts, and bites, Sam and Bert and Esther gleefully began criss-crossing the prairie, which hereabouts was wide-open and perfectly bald. Within half an hour, the south-east corner post was found, very appropriately by the two lovers.

In one vast sweep the country rolled away in successive undulations until, twenty to thirty miles off, it rose again sharply in a long line of rounded hills. Beyond these the mighty Saskatchewan cut its mile-wide swath. Such was their elevation, and so marvellously clear was the air, that through the depressions in the distant ridge, they saw the long, flat, inky stain where the sky dipped into the dark, silent forests of the north.

In the foreground, below them, were several lakes--genuine ones, this time--set in the pale-green earth like jewels. Patches of fire-killed brush smudged the landscape here and there with sombre blacks and browns.

"Magnificent!" was the general exclamation. They beckoned to the occupants of the wagon, which Trailey, looking very awkward and miserable, then drove across.

"To think," Esther observed, "that with the exception of the few Barr Colonists looking for their farms, there isn't a soul in all that vast space." She was profoundly impressed by the bigness of the picture.

"Quite true," commented Bert shortly. He was adjusting his thoughts to the startling immensity of everything. After a long silence, he added: "It's all laid out on such a stupendous scale that it makes one feel exactly like an ant."

At the word "ant," Trailey felt a creepy sensation in the region of his shoulder-blades. He tried to reach the spot with his hand, but was unable, so he gently rubbed his back against the seat. So heavenly was the relief, that his spirit reacted to the wonderful picture before him. He sat in the wagon, and with absolutely expressionless eyes contemplated Nature's magnificent canvas.

"Not a building," he sighed; "not a street; not a tram; not a chapel; not even a restaurant where you can get a sixpenny plate of beef and potatoes to eat while you read the _British Weekly_"--then, lowering his voice, he gently whispered to himself with perfectly-delightful incongruity: "From Greenland's icy mountains, to India's----" but, as it was an exceedingly warm afternoon, and as he was enjoying a certain amount of freedom from the itching of his various stings, his head, which he had protected from the sun and the insects with a handkerchief pushed up round and under the back of his cap, fell forward on his ample breast, in which comfortable position he half dozed off.

Martha Trailey's musings ran in different grooves. She regarded her volcanic spouse with unutterable disdain, then echoed him mockingly: "No out-door relief; no asylums; no almshouses; no workhouses; no soup kitchens; no----"

Interrupting her satirically, Sam took up the refrain: "An' no pubs; no music 'alls; no kids sellin' matches; no cawffee stalls; no tarts ter wink at yer; in fact, absobloomin'lutely nothink."

Esther and Bert had wandered off, ostensibly to inspect their land; actually, to pick a place to build a nest.

"We must build it of logs, Bertie." Esther, like the crows, possessed a pronounced bump of rusticity.

Martha Trailey nudged her husband into complete wakefulness.

"Aren't you going to look at that other farm now we're here?" she said irritably.

Trailey yawned cavernously. It was oppressively warm.

"No, my dear," he returned, "I've made up my mind to go back to England," and with this sudden declaration, he quietly relapsed into his usual drowsy calm. Martha Trailey was totally deprived of speech for a minute, then she recovered.

"It's no more than I expected," she retorted scornfully; "didn't I say so in England? Didn't I tell you that time when you were sitting in the chair, planting a tree in the front garden, that you were making a mistake in coming to Canada? And do you think I'm going back to be laughed at by all the chapel-folks?--after them making us a present of an illuminated hymn book? And after the speech you made at the insurance superintendents' banquet, when you drank too much of that teetotal port wine, and then told them that you felt the pioneering blood surging through your veins? No! You aren't going to drag me back over all those thousands of miles of fire and flood; let me tell you that. You've had your own way far too long. I've given in to you too much. Your mother always said so. But I'll have my way for once; remember that. And, another thing, Esther will never go back. She's going to marry that Bert Tressider, or else I'm blind."

"Marry Bert Tressider!" exclaimed Trailey with a slight show of interest.

"Yes, Bert Tressider. That's news for you, I'll be bound. He's an educated fool, of course; but, when I look back at what you were when I married you, it seems to me she might go farther and fare worse."

Trailey scratched his wrist. "God bless my soul! How long has all this been going on?"

Martha Trailey turned away from her husband with a gesture of disgust. Such blindness was inconceivable to her.

"Why, it's been going on ever since we left Saskatoon. Look! there they are, over yonder; giggling and cuddling, you may depend. Said they were going to pick a place to build a bungalow."

Mrs. Trailey was silent for a little while. She gazed pensively after the youthful lovers, who meandered about the prairie some distance off. At length she continued philosophically: "Life's a very funny thing, I'm thinking. Look at those two--only known each other three weeks and as happy as two dead birds; yet here we've been together getting on for thirty years and squabbling all the time--and all because you won't control your ungovernable temper."

"Mr. Tressider's a good match for Esther, isn't he, my dear?" observed Trailey meekly. "I know I've often watched them and thought how nice they looked together. And he's a gentleman."

"Oh, he's a gentleman, right enough; but it's no more than Esther deserves. She's a very good girl, and it's been a pleasure to train her. I know I've done my best for her, and you can't say I haven't. Don't you dare hint such a thing; do you hear?"

"I never thought of doing so, my dear."

"Well, don't, that's all. The worry of being out here in this wilderness is enough, without you always interfering and messing things up. But let's go back to the camp and think about it all, before you make me say something I might be sorry for. And I'd advise you to speak to Mr. Tressider; it's your place."

Sam was standing on the brink of a deep gorge, which cut clear across his land. A tiny rivulet ran along the bottom. A hawk banked and dived close to the vivid green grass away down below. It was a quarter of a mile across to the opposite edge of the ravine, which was a good hundred yards deep. This, then, accounted for the couple of wavy lines they had seen on Barr's large-scale map in his cabin on the _Lake Manitoba_.

Sam gazed into the coulee. "I don't know any think abaht land," he mused, "but this 'ere bit looks funny ter me." He was just a shade disappointed. His eyes roamed keenly all about, noticing the amazing amount of elbow-room there was everywhere. "Any'ow," he summed up to himself, "it's 'eaps better 'n Bermondsey." He wandered back to the wagon.

Presently Esther and Bert, both intensely happy, struggled hand in hand up the slope of the ravine, the former carrying a big bouquet of Saskatoon blossoms and wild pea flowers. They hadn't decided where to build. There were too many sites.

Mrs. Trailey continued looking round. Her expression was enigmatic. "Let's be getting back to the camp," she said succinctly. William Trailey's head drooped on his breast.

Bert's eyes already reflected the region's sweeping distances. "Land's satisfactory, eh, Sam?" he commented. "Everything's all bona fide and serene now, don't you think?" He was in high spirits.

Sam said "'e didn't think very much of that deep gultch over there, nor of its blinkin' bony fidos neither, but the land 'ud do quite nicely fer 'im."

Esther seemed incapable of expressing herself. Bert was still holding her hand. Then they tumbled aboard again, and, following their own tracks in the grass, retraced their course to Headquarters Camp.

Before retiring to bed, Bert wrote to his mother.

"BRITANNIA, N.W.T.
"30th May, 1903.

Dear Mother:

"At last we are arrived. We've been to see our land to-day--a fine stretch. Sam is still with me. He is a splendid little chap, but a little cynical with living in London so much.

"We joined fortunes with another party at Saskatoon, the Traileys. They are very respectable people. The old gentleman was an insurance superintendent or something back in England, but he is very charming. They have a daughter, mother; the sweetest, the most divine creature imaginable. Don't be surprised when I tell you that we are thinking of getting married in a few weeks' time; and I am writing this partly with the idea of asking you to send me two rings. If you get them to fit your own finger, I think that will be about the correct size. Please choose a dress ring with plenty of diamonds in it; you should be able to buy a splendid one for seventy-five pounds or so. The wedding ring doesn't matter so much. Do not delay things any longer than you can help, mother, because, strictly speaking, you are holding up our marriage.

"I enclose an old photograph of Esther (your future daughter-in-law's name, by the way), but it is not a good one of her. She is an angel, and no picture could do her justice. More next time. Love to dad, and the girls.

"Your very affectionate son,
"BERTIE.

"P.S. I have promised Esther that when we are settled, and the farm is beginning to pay, I shall bring her to England for a holiday--which will most likely be some time next year."