ing down cool gray shadows that sped
athwart the stubble; young wheat, wavy lines of bluff, and wide-spread
prairie were steeped in glowing color. The man rejoiced in the rush of
the breeze; the play of straining muscles swelling and sinking on the
bodies of the team before him was pleasant to watch; he felt at home in
the sun and wind, which, tempered as they often were by gentle rain,
were staunchly assisting him. By and by, all the foreground of the
picture he gazed upon would be covered with the coppery ears of wheat.
He had once shrunk from returning to Canada; but now, through all the
stress of cold and heat, he was growing fond of the new land. What was
more, he felt the power to work at such a task as he was now engaged in
to be a privilege.

CHAPTER XXVII

A SIGN FROM FLETT

Summer drew on with swift strides. Crimson flowers flecked the prairie
grass, the wild barley waved its bristling ears along the trails,
saskatoons glowed red in the shadows of each bluff. Day by day
swift-moving clouds cast flitting shadows across the sun-scorched
plain, but though they shed no moisture the wheat stood nearly
waist-high upon the Marston farm. The sand that whirled about it did
the strong stalks no harm.

Earlier in the season there had been drenching thunder showers, and
beyond the grain the flax spread in sheets of delicate blue that broke
off on the verge of the brown-headed timothy. Still farther back lay
the green of alsike and alfalfa, for the band of red and white cattle
that roamed about the bluffs; but while the fodder crop was bountiful
George had decided to supplement it with the natural prairie hay.
There was no pause in his exertions; task followed task in swift
succession. Rising in the sharp cold of the dawn, he toiled
assiduously until the sunset splendors died out in paling green and
crimson on the far rim of the plain.

The early summer was marked by signs of approaching change in Sage
Butte affairs. There were still a few disturbances and Hardie had
troubles to face, but he and his supporters noticed that the
indifference with which they had been regarded was giving place to
sympathy. When Grant first visited the settlement after his
misadventure, he was received with expressions of indignant
commiseration, and he afterward told Flora dryly that he was astonished
at the number of his friends. Mrs. Nelson and a few of the stalwarts
pressed Hardie to make new and more vigorous effort