ught. Lyle and
several of the supporters of the creamery scheme awaited me there.

"We have practically decided to accept your estimates," Lyle said, "but it
seems advisable to make one or two alterations, and we want you to ride
over with us to Green Mountain to-morrow and make a survey of a fresh site
that one of the others seems to think favorable. After we decide on a
place for the buildings, and a few other details, we'll ask you to attend
a meeting which we expect to hold at the Manor. The matter will have to be
discussed with Colonel Carrington."

"Then I should sooner you excuse me. I'm afraid that my presence might
prejudice the Colonel," I replied, and several of the others laughed.

"He's prejudiced already," said one. "Still, we are growing rather tired
of the Colonel's opposition to whatever he does not suggest himself, and
we mean to build the creamery. You will have to face your share of the
unpleasantness with the rest of us."

I almost regretted that I had furnished the estimates, but it was too late
and I could not very well draw back now; so, promising to attend, I
returned to Fairmead in a thoughtful mood. Aline bantered me about my
absent-mindedness, and desired to learn the cause of it, but as Harry was
there and it partly concerned Jasper's explanation I did not enlighten
her. Strange to say, I had never pictured Harry as a suitor for my sister,
but now I could see only advantages in the union for both of them, and,
what was perhaps as much to the purpose, advantages for me. I expected to
bring Grace to Fairmead sooner or later, and she and Aline were, I felt,
too much alike in one or two respects to agree.

On the following day I rode over to Green Mountain with Lyle and three or
four of his friends. We had a measuring chain with us as well as one or
two instruments that I had learned how to use when railroad building, and
it was afternoon when we got to work plotting out the alternative site for
the creamery that one of the others had considered more favorable on
account of its convenience to running water. The term Mountain is used
somewhat vaguely on the prairie, and Green Mountain could scarcely be
called a hill. It was a plateau of no great height dotted with a dense
growth of birches and seamed by ravines out of one of which a creek that
would supply the creamery with power came swirling.

We alighted on the birch bluff that stretched out some distance into the
prairie from the foot of