Festing laughed.  “It’s possible, but there’s much to be done first, and I’m not getting on very fast just now.  Still I don’t feel knocked out and I’ve walked half a mile.”

Glancing at the elevator towers and blocks of square-fronted houses that rose abruptly from the snow, Helen mused.  The settlement jarred her fastidious taste, but she had seen Western towns that had, in a few years, grown out of their raw ugliness and blossomed in an efflorescence of ambitious architecture.  Such beauty as they then possessed was not refined or subdued, but it was somehow characteristic of the country and harmonized with the builders’ optimism.  There was no permanence on the prairie; everything was in a fluid state of change and marked by a bold, but sometime misguided, striving for something better.  Then she turned to her husband.  His face was thin and she noted lines that came from mental strain and physical suffering, but his eyes were calm.  She liked his look of quiet resolution.

“You are getting stronger fast,” she said.  “The days are lengthening, spring is near, and you will soon be able to work again.  Well, I will not try to stop you.  When the prairie is plowed and covered with wheat I want you to feel that you have done your part.  The change that is coming will bring the things women like; comfort, amusements, society.  But what about you and the others, the pioneers, when there is no more ground to be broken and the way is cleared?”

Festing smiled.  “As a rule, the pioneer sells his homestead and goes on into the wilds to blaze another trail, but I imagine I shall be glad to rest.  If not, we’re an adaptable people and there are different ways of helping things along.  One can learn to use other tools than the ax and plow.”

“Ah,” said Helen, “You are getting broader.  You see clearly, Stephen, and your views are often long, but I sometimes thought you focused them too narrowly on the object in front.  Perhaps I shall have done something if I have taught you to look all round.  But here’s Sadie and the train.”

A light sprang out from the distant bluff and grew into a dazzling fan-shaped beam.  Then the roar of wheels slackened, and Sadie joined the others as a bell began to toll, and with smoke streaming back along the cars the train rolled into the station.  Somebody leaned out from the rails of a vestibule, and Sadie began to run beside the track.

“Come along!” she cried.  “It’s Bob!”

Festing and Helen followed, and when they reached the vestibule Charnock pushed a door open and took them inside.  The car was brightly lighted, but not furnished on the usual plan.  A table stood in the middle, the curtained berths were at one end, and there were cases holding books and surveying instruments.  It was obviously meant for the use of railroad managers and engineers, and three or four gentlemen stood near the table, as if they had just got up.  Festing saw that one was Dalton, who advanced eagerly as Helen came in.  He presented his companions to her and Sadie, and a gentleman who was well known on Canadian railroads gave Festing his hand.  Another was Norton’s employer, a famous contractor.