swung into changed formation, passed, and fell into indented line
again, while Colonel Barrington nodded with grim approval.

"It is very well done," he said. "The best of harvesters! No
newcomers yonder. They're capable Manitoba men. I don't know where he
got them, and, in any other year, one would have wondered where he
would find the means of paying them. We have never seen farming of
this kind at Silverdale."

He seemed to sigh a little while his hand closed on the bridle, and
Maud Barrington fancied she understood his thoughts just then.

"Nobody can be always right, and the good years do not come alone," she
said. "You will plow every acre next one."

Barrington smiled dryly. "I'm afraid that will be a little late, my
dear. Any one can follow, but since, when everybody's crop is good,
the price comes down, the man who gets the prize is the one who shows
the way."

"He was content to face the risk," said Miss Barrington.

"Of course," said the Colonel quietly. "I should be the last to make
light of his foresight and courage. Indeed, I am glad I can
acknowledge it, in more ways than one, for I have felt lately that I am
getting an old man. Still, there is one with greater capacities ready
to step into my shoes, and though it was long before I could overcome
my prejudice against him, I think I should now be content to let him
have them. Whatever Lance may have been, he was born a gentleman, and
blood is bound to tell."

Maud Barrington, who was of patrician parentage, and would not at one
time have questioned this assertion, wondered why she felt less sure of
it just then.

"But if he had not been, would not what he has done be sufficient to
vouch for him?" she said.

Barrington smiled a little, and the girl felt that her question was
useless as she glanced at him. He sat very straight in his saddle,
immaculate in dress, with a gloved hand on his hip, and a stamp which
he had inherited, with the thinly-covered pride that usually
accompanies it from generations of a similar type, on his clean-cut
face. It was evidently needless to look for any sympathy with that
view from him.

"My dear," he said, "there are things at which the others can beat us;
but, after all, I do not think they are worth the most, and while Lance
has occasionally exhibited a few undesirable characteristics, no doubt
acquired in this country, and has not been always blameless, the fact
that he is a Courthorne at once c