that I could not fathom. And I was set wondering wherein its
strangeness lay. But, try as I liked, I could not reason it out.
Everybody was agreeable and pleasant; Rita was almost gay. But at the
back of it all, time and again it recurred to me,--what is wrong here?

Not until the tea was over and I was seated between Andrew Clark and
Margaret before the fire, did the mystery solve itself.

I approached the business part of my visit.

"Mr. Clark, you have two or three hundred chickens on the ranch here."

"Ay," he nodded reflectively, puffing at his pipe.

"You send all your eggs to Vancouver?"

"Ay!"

"How many do you send per week, on an average?"

"Ask Margaret,--she'll tell you."

I turned and addressed Mrs. Clark, who looked over at her husband sadly.

"When the season is good, maybe fifty dozen a week; sometimes more,
sometimes not so many, Mr. Bremner. Of course, in the winter, there's
a falling off."

"I understand, Mrs. Clark.

"I have a big demand from the Camps for eggs," I explained. "What I
get, I have to order from Vancouver. Now, it costs you money to send
your eggs to the market there, and it costs me money to bring mine from
the market. Why cannot we create a home exchange? I could afford to
pay you at least five cents a dozen more than you are getting from the
city dealers, save you and myself the freight charges, and still I
could be money ahead and I would always be sure of having absolutely
fresh stock. Besides, I would pay cash for what I got."

Andrew Clark nodded his head. "A capital plan, my boy,--a capital
plan. Man," he exclaimed testily, "Joe, wi' all his smartness, would
never have thought o' that in a thousand years."

I laughed. "Why!--there is no thinking to it, Andrew. It is simply
the A.B.C. of arithmetic.

"What do you say to the arrangement then?" I asked.

"Better ask Margaret,--she looks after the chickens. That's her
affair."

I turned to the quiet old woman, and she heartily agreed with the plan.

"Would you ask Andrew, Mr. Bremner, if we had better not take supplies
from your store in part payment for the eggs?" she inquired.

I put the question to Andrew as things began to dawn in my mind.

"Tell her it'll suit me all right," he agreed.

And so--I acting as spokesman and go-between,--the arrangement was made
that I should use all the output of the chicken-farm and pay a price of
five cents per dozen in advance of the Vancouver market price