they live up to his theories on the plains,
where shams don't count and efficiency's the test. I don't mean that the
boys have genius, but gift and perseverance seem to be worth as much.
Anyhow, one can generally trust them to make good when they undertake a
job they don't know much about."

Helen mused. Charnock, who knew something about farming, had tried
it and failed, but she thought Festing would succeed. The man
looked determined and, in a way, ascetic; he could deny himself and
concentrate. Knowledge was not worth as much as character. But she was
content to let Miss Jardine lead the talk.

"One understands," said the latter, "that farming's laborious and not
very profitable work."

"It's always laborious," Festing agreed. "It may be profitable; that
depends. You see----"

He went on, using plain words but with some force of imagination, to
picture the wheat-grower's hopes and struggles; but he did more, for as
he talked Helen was conscious of the romance that underlay the patient
effort. She saw the empty, silent land rolling back to the West; the
ox-teams slowly breaking the first furrow, and then the big Percheron
horses and gasoline tractors taking their place. Wooden shacks
dotted the white grass, the belts of green wheat widened, wagons,
and afterwards automobiles, lurched along the rutted trails. Then the
railroad came, brick homestead and windmills rose, and cities sprang up,
as it were, in a night. Everything was fluid, there was no permanence;
rules and customs altered before they got familiar, a new nation, with
new thoughts and aims, was rising from the welter of tense activity.

Then Festing got up with an apologetic air. "I'm afraid I've stopped
too long and talked too much. Still the big movement out there is
fascinating and people in this country don't grasp its significance. I
felt I'd like to make you understand. Then you didn't seem--"

"If we had been bored, it would have been our fault, but we were not
bored at all," Miss Jardine replied. "At least, I wasn't, and don't
think Helen was."

Helen added her denial and gave Festing her hand. When he had gone Miss
Jardine looked at her with a smile.

"He was interesting," she remarked. "Talks better than he knows, and I
suppose we ought to feel flattered, because he took our comprehension
for granted. After all, it was rash to talk about Canadian progress to
two English girls."

"You made him talk," Helen rejoined. "It's the first time