ess when she was hitched
between shafts, since she was not a trotter, and reached her best gait
under a blanket. But this was known to the little girl alone, for the
big brothers never went faster than a canter, and would have punished
her if they had guessed how rapidly, on each trip to the station, the
horse was ridden.

The little girl usually started for town in the early afternoon, as the
biggest brother had that day. In this way the local passed her, going
east, when the trip was half over. As the engine came in sight, the
little girl urged the mare to a slow gallop, and, as the cow-catcher got
abreast, gave her a sharp cut that sent her forward beside the train.
And so swift was the high-strung horse that she was never left behind
until a long stretch of road had been covered. The little girl liked
best, however, to start the race at the outer edge of the broad meadow
that lay west of the station, because, by acquiring speed before the
engine came on a line with her, she could ride up to the depot with the
rear car.

The almost daily brush with the train was seemingly as much enjoyed by
the blue mare as by her rider. With the engine's roar in her ears and
its smoke in her nostrils, she sped on, neck and neck with the iron
horse. When the local was still far behind she would begin to curvet and
take the bit between her teeth. After the first few contests, she needed
no whip. The little girl had only to slacken the reins and let her go,
and she would scamper into the station, covered with dust and foam from
her flashing eyes to her flying feet.

While the little girl was thinking over her exciting rides, the biggest
brother was mournfully looking around at the farm. The year had been a
disastrous one. A chinook had swept the prairies in the late winter,
thawing all the drifts except those in sheltered gullies, and giving a
false message to the sleeping ground; so that, long before their time,
the grass and flowers had sprung up, only to be cut down by a heavy
frost that was succeeded by snow. Again a hot wind had come, and again
the grass had sprouted prematurely and been blighted. When spring
opened, the winds veered to the south and drove back, and what green
things had survived the cold died early in a hot, blowy May.

Lack of moisture had stunted the growing crops, the sun had baked the
ground under them, and every stem and blade had been scorched. Where, in
former years, the oats had nodded heavy-headed st