Alfreton, who seemed to quiver, turned to his companion, and then forgot what he had to tell him.  Winston had straightened himself, and his eyes were shining, while the lad was puzzled by his face.  Still, save for the little tremor in it his voice was very quiet.

“It has come at last,” he said.  “Two farms would not have covered your losses, Alfreton, if you had waited until to-morrow.  Have supper with us, Graham—­if you like it, lakes of champagne.”

“I want my head, but I’ll come,” said Graham, with a curious smile.  “I don’t know that it wouldn’t pay me to hire yours just now.”

Then Winston turned suddenly, and running down the stairway shook the man awaiting him by the arm.

“The flood’s with us now,” he said.  “Find Colonel Barrington, and make him cover everything before he’s ruined.  Dane, you and I, and a few others, will see the dollars rolling into Silverdale.”

Dane found Barrington, who listened with a grim smile to what he had to tell him.

“The words are yours, Dane, but that is all,” he said.  “Wheat will go down again, and I do not know that I am grateful to Courthorne.”

Dane dare urge nothing further, and spent the rest of that day wandering up and down the city, in a state of blissful content, with Alfreton and Winston.  One of them had turned his losses into a small profit, and the other two, who had, hoping almost against hope, sown when others had feared to plow, saw that the harvest would repay them beyond their wildest expectations.  They heard nothing but predictions of higher prices everywhere, and the busy city seemed to throb with exultation.  The turn had come, and there was hope for the vast wheat lands it throve upon.

Graham had much to tell them when they sat down to the somewhat elaborate meal Winston termed supper that night, and he nodded approvingly when Dane held out his glass of champagne and touched his comrade’s.

“I’m not fond of speeches, Courthorne, and I fancy our tastes are the same,” he said.  “Still, I can’t let this great night pass without greeting you as the man who has saved not a few of us at Silverdale.  We were in a very tight place before you came, and we are with you when you want us from this time, soul and body, and all our possessions.”

Alfreton’s eyes glistened, and his hand shook a little as he touched the rim of Winston’s goblet.

“There are folks in the old country who will bless you when they know,” he said.  “You’ll forget it, though I can’t, that I was once against you.”

Winston nodded to them gravely, and, when the glasses were empty, shook hands with the three.

“We have put up a good fight, and I think we shall win, but, while you will understand me better by and by, what you have offered me almost hurts,” he said.

“What we have given is yours.  We don’t take it back,” said Dane.

Winston smiled, though there was a wistfulness in his eyes as he saw the faint bewilderment in his companions’ faces.