“The man knew his place, but you came perilously near making a fool of yourself this morning, my dear,” she said.

It was a week or two later, and very hot, when, with others of his neighbors, Winston sat in the big hall at Silverdale Grange.  The windows were open wide and the smell of hot dust came in from the white waste which rolled away beneath the stars.  There was also another odor in the little puffs of wind that flickered in, and far off where the arch of indigo dropped to the dusky earth, wavy lines of crimson moved along the horizon.  It was then the season when fires that are lighted by means which no man knows creep up and down the waste of grass, until they put on speed and roll in a surf of flame before a sudden breeze.  Still, nobody was anxious about them, for the guarding furrows that would oppose a space of dusty soil to the march of the flame had been plowed round every homestead at Silverdale.

Maud Barrington was at the piano and her voice was good, while Winston, who had known what it is to toil from red dawn to sunset without hope of more than daily food, found the simple song she had chosen chime with his mood.  “All day long the reapers.”

A faint staccato drumming that rose from the silent prairie throbbed through the final chords of it, and when the music ceased, swelled into the gallop of a horse.  It seemed in some curious fashion portentous, and when there was a rattle and jingle outside other eyes than Winston’s were turned towards the door.  It swung open presently and Dane came in.  There was quiet elation and some diffidence in his bronzed face as he turned to Colonel Barrington.

“I could not get away earlier from the settlement, sir, but I have great news,” he said.  “They have awoke to the fact that stocks are getting low in the old country.  Wheat moved up at Winnipeg, and there was almost a rush to buy yesterday.”

There was a sudden silence, for among those present were men who remembered the acres of good soil they had not plowed, but a little grim smile crept into their leader’s face.

“It is,” he said quietly, “too late for most of us.  Still, we will not grudge you your good fortune, Dane.  You and a few of the others owe it to Courthorne.”

Every eye was on the speaker, for it had become known among his neighbors that he had sold for a fall; but Barrington could lose gracefully.  Then both his niece and Dane looked at Winston with a question in their eyes.

“Yes,” he said very quietly, “it is the turning of the tide.”

He crossed over to Barrington, who smiled at him dryly as he said, “It is a trifle soon to admit that I was wrong.”

Winston made a gesture of almost impatient deprecation.  “I was wondering how far I might presume, sir.  You have forward wheat to deliver?”

“I have,” said Barrington, “unfortunately a good deal.  You believe the advance will continue?”