ed you
in a week, and I could scarcely sell your wheat at it to-day. I was
going to hold it myself, because I can occasionally get a little more
from one or two millers who like that special grade. Usual sorts I'm
selling for a fall. Quite sure the deal wouldn't suit you?"

Barrington lighted a fresh cigar, though Graham noticed that he had
smoked very little of the one he flung away. This was, of course, a
trifle, but it is the trifles that count in the aggregate upon the
prairie, as they not infrequently do elsewhere.

"I fancy I told you so," he said.

The broker glanced at Dane, who was a big, bronzed man, and, since
Barrington could not see him, shook his head deprecatingly.

"You can consider that decided, Graham," he said. "Still, can you as a
friendly deed give us any notion of what to do? As you know, farming,
especially at Silverdale, costs money, and the banks are demanding an
iniquitous interest just now, while we are carrying over a good deal of
wheat."

Graham nodded. He understood why farming was unusually expensive at
Silverdale, and was, in recollection of past favors, inclined to be
disinterestedly friendly.

"If I were you, I would sell right along for forward delivery at a few
cents under the market."

"It is a trifle difficult to see how that would help us," said
Barrington, with a little gesture of irritation, for it almost seemed
that the broker was deriding him.

"No!" said the man from Winnipeg, "on the contrary, it's quite easy.
Now I can predict that wheat will touch lower prices still before you
have to make delivery, and it isn't very difficult to figure out the
profit on selling a thing for a dollar and then buying it, when you
have to produce it, at ninety cents. Of course, there is a risk of the
market going against you, but you could buy at the first rise, and
you've your stock to dole out in case anybody cornered you."

"That," said Dane thoughtfully, "appears quite sensible. Of course,
it's a speculation, but presumably we couldn't be much worse off than
we are. Have you any objections to the scheme, sir?"

Barrington laid down his cigar, and glanced with astonished severity at
the speaker. "Unfortunately, I have. We are wheat growers and not
wheat stock jugglers. Our purpose is to farm, and not swindle and lie
in the wheat pits for decimal differences. I have a distinct antipathy
to anything of the kind."

"But, sir," said Dane, and Barrington stopped him w