willing and
quick enough, but they were ill-trained and needed constant tugging at
the lines. In vain Don shouted and cracked his whip, hurrying his team
to his pile and back again; the horses only grew more and more awkward,
while they foamed and fretted and tired themselves out.

Behind came Ranald, still humoring his slow-going team with easy hand
and quiet voice. But while he refrained from hurrying his horses, he
himself worked hard, and by his good judgment and skill with the chain,
and in skidding the logs into his pile, in which his training in the
shanty had made him more than a match for any one in the field, many
minutes were saved.

When the cowbell sounded for dinner, Aleck's team stepped off for the
barn, wet, but fresh and frisky as ever, and in perfect heart. Don's
horses appeared fretted and jaded, while Ranald brought in his blacks
with their glossy skins white with foam where the harness had chafed,
but unfretted, and apparently as ready for work as when they began.

"You have spoiled the shine of your team," said Aleck, looking over
Ranald's horses as he brought them up to the trough. "Better turn them
out for the afternoon. They can't stand much more of that pace."

Aleck was evidently trying to be good-natured, but he could not hide the
sneer in his tone. They had neither of them forgotten the incident at
the church door, and both felt that it would not be closed until more
had been said about it. But to-day, Ranald was in the place of host,
and it behooved him to be courteous, and Aleck was in good humor with
himself, for his team had easily led the field; and besides, he was
engaged in a kind and neighborly undertaking, and he was too much of
a man to spoil it by any private grudge. He would have to wait for his
settlement with Ranald.

During the hour and a half allowed for dinner, Ranald took his horses to
the well, washed off their legs, removed their harness, and led them to
a cool spot behind the barn, and there, while they munched their oats,
he gave them a good hard rub-down, so that when he brought them into the
field again, his team looked as glossy and felt as fresh as before they
began the day's work.

As Ranald appeared on the field with his glossy blacks, Aleck glanced at
the horses, and began to feel that, in the contest for first place, it
was Ranald he had to fear, with his cool, steady team, rather than
Don. Not that any suspicion crossed his mind that Farquhar McNaughton's