l. Mrs. Cavers's eyes were on the group of
men at the woodpile, for Bill was among them, very much smartened up
in his good clothes. She had had some difficulty in persuading him to
come. He wanted to stay at home and sleep, he said. While the men
talked beside the woodpile, Sandy Braden, the hotelkeeper, drove up
with his pacing horse and rubber-tired buggy. He stopped to talk to
the men. Sandy was a very genial fellow, and a general favourite.

Mrs. Cavers sat perfectly still; only the compression of her lips
showed her agitation.

"Come on, Bill, and I'll give you a good swift ride," she heard him
say.

Bill hesitated and looked around uneasily. Sandy gave him a
significant wink and then he went without a word.

Inside, Mrs. Cavers gave a little smothered cry, which Libby Anne
understood. She moved nearer to her mother in sympathy.

Mrs. Cavers leaned forward, straining her eyes after the cloud of
dust that marked the pacing horse's progress, clasping and unclasping
her hands in wordless misery. Bill was gone--she had lost him again.
The wind drove ripples in the grain, the little white clouds hung
motionless in the sky, but Bill was gone, and the sun, bright and
pitiless, was shining over all. Then the other men came in and the
service began.

The singing was led by Roderick Ray, who had the Covenanters' blood
in his veins. He carried a tuning-fork with him always, and fitted
the psalm tunes to the hymns, carrying them through in a rolling
baritone, and swinging his whole body to the motion.

The Reverend John Burrell was a student of men. He had travelled the
North-West before the days of railways, by dog-train, snow-shoes, and
horse-back, preaching in the lumber camps and later on in the railway
camps, and it was a deep grief to him when his health broke down and
he was compelled to take a smaller appointment. He liked to be on the
firing-line. He was a gentle, shrewd, resourceful man, whose sense of
humour and absolute belief in the real presence of God had carried
him over many a rough place.

As he stood before his congregation this day in the schoolhouse, a
great compassion for the men and women before him filled his heart.
He saw their lives, so narrow and bare and self-centred; he read the
hard lines that the struggle with drought and hail and weeds had
written on their faces; and so he spoke to them, not as a stranger
might speak, but as a brother, working with them, who also had
carried burdens