urned to Agatha. "He calls working from sunrise until
it's dark, and afterwards now and then, amusement!" She looked back at
Wyllard. "I believe it isn't quite easy for you to hold your back as
straight as you are doing, and that off-horse certainly looks as if it
wanted to lie down."

Wyllard laughed. "It won't until after supper, anyway. There are two
more rows of furrows still to do."

"I suppose that is a hint!" Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha when the
wagon jolted on.

"That man," she said, "is a great favorite of mine. For one thing, he's
fastidious, though he's fortunately very far from perfect in some
respects. He has a red-hot temper, which now and then runs away with
him."

"What do you mean by fastidious?"

"It's a little difficult to define, but I certainly don't mean
pernicketty. Of course, there is a fastidiousness which makes one shrink
from unpleasant things, but Harry's is the other kind. It impels him to
do them every now and then."

Agatha made no answer. She was uneasily conscious that it might not be
advisable to think too much about this man, and in another minute or two
they reached the homestead. The house was a plain frame building that
had grown out of an older and smaller one of logs, part of which
remained. It was much the same with the barns and stables, for, while
they were stoutly built of framed timber or logs, one end of most of
them was lower than the rest, and in some cases consisted of poles and
sods. Even to her untrained eyes all she saw suggested order, neatness,
and efficiency. The whole was flanked and sheltered by a big birch
bluff, in which trunks and branches showed through a thin green haze of
tiny opening leaves.

A man whom Wyllard had sent after them took the horses.

Agatha commented on what she called the added-to look of the buildings.

"The Range," said Mrs. Hastings, "has grown rapidly since Harry took
hold. The old part represents the high-water mark of his father's
efforts. Of course," she added reflectively, "Harry has had command of
some capital since a relative of his died, but I never thought that
explained everything."

They entered the house, and a gray-haired Swedish woman led them through
several match-boarded rooms into a big, cool hall. She left them there
for a while, and Agatha was absorbed for a minute or two with her
impressions of the house. It was singularly empty by comparison with the
few English homesteads that she had seen. There wer