as she rose and stood with hands
stretched out towards the stove.

"Aunt," she said. "Twoinette has twice asked me to go back to
Montreal, and I think I will. The prairie is very dreary in the
winter."

It was about this time when, as the whitened horses floundered through
the lee of a bluff where there was shelter from the wind, the men in
the sleigh found opportunity for speech.

"Now," said Dane quietly, "I know that we have lost you, for a while at
least. Will you ever come back, Winston?"

Winston nodded. "Yes," he said. "When time has done its work, and
Colonel Barrington asks me, if I can buy land enough to give me a
standing at Silverdale."

"That," said Dane, "will need a good many dollars, and you insisted on
flinging those you had away. How are you going to make them?"

"I don't know," said Winston simply. "Still, by some means it will be
done."

It was next day when he walked into Graham's office at Winnipeg, and
laughed when the broker who shook hands passed the cigar box across to
him.

"We had better understand each other first," he said; "You have heard
what has happened to me and will not find me a profitable customer
to-day."

"These cigars are the best in the city, or I wouldn't ask you to take
one," said Graham dryly. "You understand me, any way. Wait until I
tell my clerk that if anybody comes round I'm busy."

A bell rang, a little window opened and shut again, and Winston smiled
over his cigar.

"I want to make thirty thousand dollars as soon as I can, and it seems
to me there are going to be opportunities in this business. Do you
know anybody who would take me as clerk or salesman?"

Graham did not appear astonished. "You'll scarcely make them that way
if I find you a berth at fifty a month," he said.

"No," said Winston. "Still, I wouldn't purpose keeping it for more
than six months or so. By that time I should know a little about the
business."

"Got any money now?"

"One thousand dollars," said Winston quietly.

Graham nodded. "Smoke that cigar out, and don't worry me. I've got
some thinking to do."

Winston took up a journal, and laid it down again twenty minutes later.
"Well," he said, "you think it's too big a thing?"

"No," said Graham. "It depends upon the man, and it might be done.
Knowing the business goes a good way, and so does having dollars in
hand, but there's something that's born in one man in a thousand that
goes a long way further stil