Dunning, filled with a new feeling of
independence, started for Yorkton with a load of wheat and oats. It
was along towards spring when the snow was just starting to go and at a
narrow place in the trail, as luck would have it, he met a farmer
returning from town with an empty sleigh. In trying to pass the other
fellow Dunning's sleigh upset. While helping to reload the farmer
imparted the information that oats were selling for eight cents and all
he had been able to get for his wheat was something like thirteen cents
in Yorkton the day before! The young Englishman's new feeling of
"independence" slid into his shoe-packs as he stared speechless at his
neighbor. Right-about went his oxen and back home he hauled his load,
angry and dismayed and realizing that something was wrong with Western
conditions that could bring about such treatment.

When a branch of the Grain Growers' Association was formed at
Beaverdale, not far from his homestead, it is scarcely necessary to say
that young Dunning joined and took an active part in the debates.
Finally he was chosen as delegate for the district at the annual Grain
Growers' convention at Prince Albert on condition that he could finance
the trip on $17.50. The story is told that Dunning figured by making
friends with the furnace man of one of the hotels he might be allowed
to sleep in the cellar for the week he would be in Prince Albert and
manage to get through on this meagre expense fund! At any rate he did
find a place to lay his head and, if reports be true, actually came
back with money in his pocket.

It was at this convention that the young man first attracted attention.
The delegates had deadlocked over a discussion in regard to a scheme
for insuring crops against hailstorms in Saskatchewan, half of them
favoring it and half opposing it. The young homesteader from
Beaverdale got up, ran his fingers through his pompadour and outlined
the possibilities of co-operative insurance which would apply only to
municipalities where a majority of the farmers favored the idea. He
talked so convincingly and sanely that the convention elected him as a
director of the Association and later when the co-operative elevator
scheme was broached he was elected vice-president of the Association
and the suggestion was made that he undertake the work of organizing
the new elevator concern. Incidentally, the man who suggested this was
E. A. Partridge, of Sintaluta--the same Partridge wh