ested himself in
the great silver watch-chain that looped convenient to his fingers.
"Go on wif your story, man," he said. "I's listenin'."

And big Aleck McCrae forgot the immigrants crowded around, forgot the
lurch of the train and the window-glimpse of forests heavy-blanketed
with snow, as he ploughed his fertile imagination and spread a sudden
harvest of wonderment before the little soul that clung to his great
watch-chain.

Harris and his young bride found much to occupy their attention.
Their minds were big with plans, nebulous and indefinite but charged
with potentiality, which they should put into effect when they had
selected their prairie home. To the young girl, naturally of romantic
temperament, the journey of life upon which they had so recently
embarked together took on something of the glamour of knightly
adventure. Through the roseate lens of early womanhood the vague,
undefined difficulties that loomed before her were veiled in a mist
of glory, as she felt that no sacrifice could really hurt, no
privation could cut too deep, while she was fulfilling her destiny as
wife and comrade to the bravest and best of men. The vast plains,
heart-breaking in their utter emptiness, could only be full to
her--full of life, and love, and colour; full of a happiness too
great to be contained. She watched the gaunt trees rising naked from
the white forest, and her mind flitted on a thousand miles in
advance, while on the cold window-sill her fingers tapped time to the
click of the car wheels underneath.

Harris, too, was busy with his thoughts. He measured the obstacles
ahead with the greater precision of the masculine mind. To him, love
was not a magician's wand to dissolve his difficulties in thin air,
but a mighty power which should enable him to uproot them from his
path. No matter what stood in the way--what loneliness, what
hardship, what disappointment and even disillusionment--he should
fight his way out to ultimate victory for the sake of the dear girl
at his side. As she watched the wintry landscape dreamily through the
window he shot quick glances at her fine face; the white brow, the
long lashes tempering the light of her deep magnetic eyes; the
perfect nose, through whose thin walls was diffused the faintest pink
against a setting of ivory; lips, closed and tender as in the sleep
of a little child; chin, strong, but not too strong; and a neck full
and beautiful, the whole forming a picture of purity, ge