“Believe me, you fellows who come out now have a much softer thing of it than I did when I first came.  In those days they wouldn’t have an Englishman, they’d have a Galician rather.  In Winnipeg, when they advertised in the paper for labor, you’d see often as not:  ’No English need apply.’”

“Well, it was their own fault,” stormed Gertie.  “They wouldn’t work or anything.  They just soaked.”

“It was their own fault, right enough.  This was the dumping ground for all the idlers, drunkards and scallywags in England.  They had the delusion over there that if a man was too big a rotter to do anything at all at home, he’d only got to be sent out here and he’d make a fortune.”

“I guess things ain’t as bad as that now,” spoke up Taylor.  “They send us a different class.  It takes an Englishman two years longer than anybody else to get the hang of things, but when once he tumbles to it, he’s better than any of them.”

“Ah, well!” said Marsh, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, “I guess nowadays everyone’s glad to see the Englishman make good.  When I nearly smashed up three years ago, I had no end of offers of help.”

“How did you nearly smash up?” asked Hornby interestedly.

“Oh, I had a run of bad luck.  One year the crop was frosted and the next year I was hailed out.  It wants a good deal of capital to stand up against that.”

“That’s what happened to me,” said Taylor.  “I was hailed out and I hadn’t got any capital, so I just had to hire out.”  He turned suddenly to Nora.  “If it hadn’t been for that hail storm you wouldn’t have had the pleasure of makin’ my acquaintance.”

“How hollow and empty life would have been without that!” she said ironically.

“I wonder you didn’t just quit and start out Calgary way,” put in Gertie.

“Well,” said Taylor slowly, “it was this way:  I’d put in two years on my homestead and done a lot of clearing.  It seemed kind of silly to lose my rights after all that.  Then, too, when you’ve been hailed out once, the chances are it won’t happen again, for some years that is, and by that time I ought to have a bit put by.”

“What sort of house have you got?” asked Nora.

“Well, it ain’t what you might call a palace, but it’s large enough for two.”

“Thinking of marrying, Frank?” asked Marsh.

“Well, I guess it’s kind of lonesome on a farm without a woman.  But it’s not so easy to find a wife when you’re just starting on your own.  Canadian girls think twice before taking a farmer.”

“They know something, I guess,” said Gertie grimly.

“You took me, Gertie,” laughed her husband.

“Not because I wanted to, you can be sure of that.  I don’t know how you got round me.”

“I wonder.”

“I guess it was because you was kind of helpless, and I didn’t know what you’d do without me.”

“I guess it was love, and you couldn’t help yourself.”  Gertie stopped her work long enough to make a little grimacing protest.