Maud Barrington felt it vaguely, but she recognized more clearly, as her aunt had done, the faith and daring of the sower.  The earth was very bountiful, but that wheat had not come there of itself; and she knew the man who had called it up and had done more than bear his share of the primeval curse which, however, was apparently more or less evaded at Silverdale.  Even when the issue appeared hopeless, the courage that held him resolute in the face of others’ fears, and the greatness of his projects, had appealed to her, and it almost counted for less that he had achieved success.  Then glancing further across the billowing grain she saw him—­still, as it seemed it had always been with him, amid the stress and dust of strenuous endeavor.

Once more, as she had seen them when the furrows were bare at seed time, and there was apparently only ruin in store for those who raised the Eastern people’s bread, lines of dusty teams came plodding down the rise.  They advanced in echelon, keeping their time and distance with a military precision, but in place of the harrows, the tossing arms of the binders flashed and swung.  The wheat went down before them, their wake was strewn with gleaming sheaves, and one man came foremost swaying in the driving-seat of a rattling machine.  His face was the color of a Blackfeet’s, and she could see the darkness of his neck above the loose-fronted shirt, and a bare blackened arm that was raised to hold the tired beasts to their task.  Their trampling, and the crash and rattle that swelled in slow crescendo, drowned the murmur of the wheat, until one of the machines stood still, and the leader, turning a moment in his saddle, held up a hand.  Then those that came behind swung into changed formation, passed, and fell into indented line again, while Colonel Barrington nodded with grim approval.

“It is very well done,” he said.  “The best of harvesters!  No newcomers yonder.  They’re capable Manitoba men.  I don’t know where he got them, and, in any other year, one would have wondered where he would find the means of paying them.  We have never seen farming of this kind at Silverdale.”

He seemed to sigh a little while his hand closed on the bridle, and Maud Barrington fancied she understood his thoughts just then.

“Nobody can be always right, and the good years do not come alone,” she said.  “You will plow every acre next one.”

Barrington smiled dryly.  “I’m afraid that will be a little late, my dear.  Any one can follow, but since, when everybody’s crop is good, the price comes down, the man who gets the prize is the one who shows the way.”

“He was content to face the risk,” said Miss Barrington.

“Of course,” said the Colonel quietly.  “I should be the last to make light of his foresight and courage.  Indeed, I am glad I can acknowledge it, in more ways than one, for I have felt lately that I am getting an old man.  Still, there is one with greater capacities ready to step into my shoes, and though it was long before I could overcome my prejudice against him, I think I should now be content to let him have them.  Whatever Lance may have been, he was born a gentleman, and blood is bound to tell.”