The magic of Manitoba was laying hold of Bertha. There was a vigour and a stir in the wild, solitary life of the prairie which was like new life to the girl who had been so pale and listless when she lived at home, sheltered and cared for by the two hard-working elder sisters. There was not much sheltering or carefulness on her account in these glowing summer days while the wheat was ripening and the busy farmers were preparing to deal with a record crop.

Grace lay in the same helpless condition in which she had been brought home. She could move one hand a little, her face and speech were just the same as when she was well, but the rest of her was as if it were dead so far as her feeling went.

Regardless of the expense, Tom had had a specialist out from Winnipeg; but the great man could only endorse the opinion of Dr. Benson, who had said that Mrs. Ellis might recover after some years, when the paralyzing effects of the fall had worn off, or she might all her life remain a helpless invalid. The cost of the specialist’s visit would leave Tom Ellis a poor man until after he had reaped his harvest, and the worst of it was no good had come from it save that little ray of hope for the future, which, after all, might not be hope. But husband and wife accepted the inevitable with the resignation and patience born of a great faith and trust, making the best of things so far as a best could be made.

Friends and neighbours were as kind as kind could be, but it was on Bertha that the heavy load of the household burden fell. It was she who had to mother the children now, to make the bread, and cook the dinners. It was her sorely incapable hands which, when the cooking and cleaning were done, had to fashion the little garments for the children. Only in this matter of sewing Grace, though helpless, was of the greatest assistance, because she knew just how it ought to be done, and she could direct the cutting out, the putting together, and all the planning and fixing which goes to work of that kind.

Bertha’s revolt was over. No one had even guessed the time of struggle through which she had gone, unless indeed Eunice Long had read what was in her heart during those black hours when the disaster was new. But Bertha felt that never again would she be able to respect herself because of the manner in which she had fallen in her self-esteem that day, when first she had been told that Grace would probably be helpless. She hated the thought of her bondage as much as ever, but she knew that there was no escaping it, and so accepted her fate with the best grace she could.

Perhaps it was that most wholesome disgust of herself which helped her most at this time, because she forced herself to perform all her manifold duties with the quickness and thoroughness she would have put into work that was a joy, and if in the morning her soul revolted at the thought of the long, toilsome day ahead of her, no one knew it but herself.

The children grew and throve in the sunshine, they lived in the fields from morning to night, and the narrow little house was strangely quiet and peaceful in the long summer noons when Bertha came to sit by the couch, and learn the unspoken lessons of patience which Grace was teaching her day by day.

From the window of the kitchen, which was sitting-room, dining-room, and kitchen all combined, there was nothing to be seen save the wide stretches of waving wheat, varied here and there by low grassy knolls covered with golden rod in full bloom, a mauve chrysanthemum and the bright purple thistle common to the prairie. Bertha’s eyes ached for the cool green of tree foliage, but the only green leaves to be seen were from the pumpkin vines, which she herself had planted by the veranda in the springtime, and which had flourished and spread until they made a shade of greenery most welcome to the eye.

“Another month and all will be bare stubble. Of what a relief it will be!” said Grace one hot afternoon, as her eager gaze wandered out through the open door to the landscape bathed in sunshine, where the waving wheat was already turning to gold in readiness for harvest.

“It will be a very busy time, but we shall get through somehow; don’t worry about it,” replied Bertha soothingly; for she thought that Grace was wondering how the harvest rush of work would go through without her hands to help.

“It was not the thought of the work which made me so anxious to have it over,” went on Grace, with a far-away look in her eyes, as if she were seeing more than the waving stretch of wheat. “I am afraid that my faith is of very poor stuff, because it gets so feeble in times of strain. But sometimes I can hardly sleep at night, wondering what would happen to us if tempest ruined the crop now.”

“A tempest might damage it, but surely, surely it would not entirely ruin it now,” said Bertha, who found it difficult to realize all that was involved by this system of specializing in agriculture.

“Sometimes a thousand acres of corn are destroyed in a night on these prairie lands, and if it is fate—our fate—who can stay it?” said Grace, as her gaze travelled to and fro along the little stretch of horizon that could be seen from where she lay. Then she cried out, with an anguish of fear in her tone: “Bertha! Bertha! What is that out yonder?”

Bertha sprang to her feet, startled by the terror in the tone of the invalid. But she could see nothing at all to rouse a fear; it was just a stretch of golden-floored space, with the blue sky above, and a dim white cloud on the edge of the horizon.

“There is nothing wrong, dear, that I can see, nothing,” she said, but all the same she went to the window, which gave a different view to that spread out before the open door; for she wanted to make sure that there was really no cause for alarm.

“It is smoke! It is smoke!” cried Grace hoarsely. “Don’t you see that white cloud on the edge of the horizon? It was not there ten minutes ago, and it is not a real cloud, I am sure of it. Something has set fire to the wheat, and the wind is driving this way. Oh, Bertha, what shall we do? What shall we do?”

“There may be nothing wrong,” said Bertha quietly, although her heart was beating furiously. “I will run across to the barn and climb the ladder. Tom left it there this morning when he was mending the shingle at the corner. There was not enough wood to finish the job, so he said that it would have to wait until to-morrow.”

“Take the glass, you will see farther; it stands on the shelf in my bedroom. Only, make haste, make haste!” panted Grace.

Bertha flew to obey. She was growing alarmed herself, for certainly this was like no cloud that she had ever seen before, and already the whole horizon was streaked with filmy haze.

Slipping the field glass into her apron pocket, so that she might have both hands free for climbing the ladder, she swarmed upwards as fast as she could go. Reaching the ridge, she steadied herself with one hand, and, pulling the glass from her pocket with the other, she tried to see what it was which made that dreadful murky haze away to the west, where the stretch of corn reached to the horizon.

Her hand was shaking so badly that the glass wobbled up and down, and she could get no focus at all. But alas! alas! she did not need the evidence of her eyes to tell her what it was, for the west wind was bringing on its breath the smell of smoke. Grace was right; it was the wheat that was on fire, and the wind was blowing it straight on to their section. Tom was away. He had gone over to Pottle’s Bent with two horses to bring home a reaper, in readiness to start cutting on the next day but one. But if the fire had its way there would be no cutting to do, and the golden plenty which waited for harvesting would be nothing but a blackened ruin.

“What can I do?” she wailed, as she slid down the ladder, and then with unerring instinct ran indoors to ask Grace what was the wisest thing to do.

“If the reaper were here, you might ride up and down a swath until you had cut enough to stop the fire. But the reaper isn’t here, and so that is out of the question, and there is nothing to be done but to beat it out,” said Grace, her nimble mind taking in the best way to meet the danger and overcome it.

“I’ll go and hitch Pucker to the wagon and put a barrel into it; I shall have to fill it with water afterwards, and it will take time, but I will be as fast as I can,” panted Bertha, and then she rushed away in a great hurry, bidding Grace remember all that she would want to take with her.

The wagon stood outside the barn, and it did not take many minutes to roll an empty barrel towards it, and then by sheer strength of arm get it up into the wagon, where she wedged it tight to keep it from spilling the water. Pucker came up to see what was going forward, and she caught him promptly, hitching him to the wagon with a dexterity born of much practice, then, driving up to the house, she proceeded to fill her barrel rather more than half full of water. Luckily she had that morning drawn up from the well the water she would want the next day for the family wash, and this saved her much time.

“Throw half a dozen sacks into the wagon, some pieces of string, and two or three brooms—you will be able to fight the fire quicker with a bag on a broom,” said Grace, then she bade her prop the doors open and go.

“Say Godspeed to me, dear; I am so horribly afraid!” panted Bertha, halting for a moment by the couch, her face white and drawn, and all the old cowardice of her nature rising up to mock her, now that she so badly needed to be brave and strong.

“Godspeed you, dear, and make your arms strong to save our harvest for us,” said Grace, and there was such a thrill in her tones, that Bertha was stirred by it into forgetting the miserable tremors which made her shrink from the task before her.

Scrambling into the wagon, she drove across the paddock to the gate leading out to the westward trail. The children were playing behind the barn, where there was a thin strip of shade, and she called to them to go back to the house to look after their mother. She would have liked to take Dicky with her, because he was quite able to help her fight the fire. But he was the eldest, and must be left to look after the smaller children; for Molly was a feckless mite, and the twins were mostly in mischief.

When once the paddock gate was shut, and she had mounted the wagon again, she drove along the trail a hard gallop. The old horse doubtless wondered why so much stick was his portion, but he rose to the occasion, and did his level best to get over the ground. Grace had told her to put a cover on the barrel so that the water should not be spilled, and although a little washed over and wet her frock, it did more good than harm, since if she were wet there would be less danger of her clothing taking fire.

Once before, when she and Hilda were staying at a farm, she had helped to fight a fire which broke out in a hayfield, but it had been comparatively easy for half a score of people to tramp out the sparks and flames in a field of burning grass. But now she had to wrestle singlehanded with a stretch of fire that threatened a vast area of wheat which was more than waist high.

“But someone else will see it, and if I am the first there I shall be sure to have help soon,” she said to herself, as the wagon bumped, bounced, and swayed over the roughness of the trail. She was getting nearer now; the flames were visible, shooting out like red tongues through the thick smoke, while she could hear the soft rustle and rush of the flames.

Luckily the trail led along one side of the burning area, and so she was able to get quite near with the wagon before plunging into the waist-high wheat. Her great trouble was with Pucker. The poor old horse was afraid of the fire, and she was so much in dread that he would bolt. To prevent a catastrophe of this sort, she dismounted and, tilting her hat over the eyes of the animal, led it forward right up to the edge of the burning corn.

Before she could begin to fight the fire she had to unhitch Pucker from the wagon and tie him so that he could not stampede. When this was done she set to work knocking out the fire, but it was awful toil. Every time she wanted to wet her broom afresh she had to swing up into the wagon, dip the broom and the sack into the barrel, and swing down again, rush across the patch of blackened, smouldering stubble, and dab away at the fire until her weapon was dry again. Her boots were singed; her short skirt would have been blazing long ago, if she had not taken the precaution of dipping it in the barrel, so that it hung limp and soaked about her feet.

Would no help ever come? She was making no headway in putting out the fire, though it was not gaining as it would have done if she had not been there to check it. There was a great terror on her lest her water should be exhausted before help came. If this happened, she would have to go back to the house for more, and she would have to draw it up from the well; and oh! the very thought of it almost broke her down, while there was a noise of many waters in her head, the sun scorched her with a fierce heat, the fire burned her shoes, and she was so nearly exhausted that she was afraid that she would roll into the burning wheat, and so come by a terrible death in her efforts to put out the fire.

Slowly she swung herself into the wagon for the last time—it must be the last time, for there was hardly enough water left to damp her sack. What was the use of even trying to keep on any longer, when she could only keep the fire in check and could not succeed in putting it out?

Squelch! Squelch! Down into the bottom of the barrel went the singed and smouldering broom. Surely there was more water left than she had supposed! She could keep on a little longer yet, and, yes—really she was sure that the stretch of fire was no greater than it had been.

But hark! What was that?

A strained shout reached her ears, but as yet she could not see anyone coming. Her eyes were smarting so with dust and steam that everything was misty and indistinct; but it was a shout that she had heard, and—ah, yes, there was another!

Joy! Joy! The wheat might be saved after all! Down from the wagon she sprang, the black, dirty water splashing into her face, which was blacker still; but no one thought of looks in times of stress like these. She was stronger now that her hope had revived, and she fled across the blackened space to fight with renewed energy, while the shouts came nearer and nearer. She could hear horses galloping, and knew for a certainty that help was at hand.

“Look out; you are afire!” yelled a voice, too hoarse and strained for recognition, and at the same moment Bertha felt a swirling hot blast strike her on the side, and, to her horror, a tongue of flame shot up the sleeve of her blouse. There was no time to think, she could only act, and, dropping promptly on the ground, she rolled and rolled, fighting the terrible danger that menaced her. Then suddenly something wet and cold dropped upon her, there was more vigorous rolling, only now it was someone else who did it, and then, when she tried to get up, a woman’s voice said in her ears:

“Lie still a few minutes; you will feel better then. But I must go and help them put the fire out.”

For a little while Bertha lay still, trying to get rid of that horrible fluttering at her heart which had seized her when she saw the fire creeping up her arm; then, remembering the dire need there was for her to be up and helping, she struggled to her feet again. At first she swayed dizzily, but by dint of leaning on her broom handle she managed to get across to where several people were working with frantic haste at the line of fire.

“Better, are you?” panted the woman, whom Bertha now recognized as Mrs. Smith, from Blow End, their nearest neighbour.

“I am all right, thank you,” Bertha answered, and then, dipping her broom into a barrel of water, which the two men who were also fighting the fire had placed on the ground, she went to work with a will again. It was easier now—the terrible sense of responsibility was lifted. Moreover, it was so much easier with the water on the ground: one could dip and run, dabbing and beating with a dripping sack, and so quenching out a much longer area of fire with the same amount of labour.

Neither of the men spoke to Bertha, except that once Mr. Smith shouted to her to be careful and wet her frock, or she would be on fire again. At the end of half an hour the danger was over, and the four blackened, exhausted fire-fighters gathered in a group to discuss the ruin which had been so narrowly averted, and to rest their aching arms after the trial of strength and endurance through which they had passed.

“We were drawing up the water for washing to-morrow,” said Mrs. Smith, a young and pretty woman with two little children, “then a traveller from Brown & Smedley’s Implement Factory at Gilbert Plains rode up and said he’d seen smoke over this way. I guess we acted on that hint pretty smart. His horses were fresh, and ours wanted catching, so we just filled three barrels with water, and I shut the children into the bedroom. They were both asleep, luckily, and then away we came. But I guess we should have been too late to have done much good if it had not been for you. My word, but you were plucky to tackle it alone, and you must have worked like a nigger!”

“Is there much wheat burned?” asked Bertha, miserably conscious now of her most awful appearance, as the traveller from Messrs. Brown & Smedley turned to look at her with what she deemed a calm and critical gaze. He was black and dusty himself, but nothing compared to her.

“Not more than two acres, I should say,” replied Mr. Smith. “But that is thanks to you, Miss Bertha. It would have been touch and go with a hundred acres if you had not kept it from crossing the Rownton trail.”

“I am afraid that I should never have been brave enough to face it alone. But Mrs. Ellis told me that I must come, and so I just had to do my best,” replied Bertha. “And oh, can you do without me now, for I have left her alone except for the children?”

“Yes, go by all means; the men can do without any more help now. I am going myself, too, for I tremble to think what may be happening to my babies,” said Mrs. Smith; and then she called out: “Here comes someone else—what a blessed relief! Now I shall be able to be driven home instead of having to walk.”

The someone else was Bill Humphries, who had been driving back to Pentland Broads from the depot at Rownton, but, seeing the smoke, had driven as hard as his horses could travel to reach the place.

While these explanations had been going on, Bertha went off to hitch up Pucker, and she was quite unreasonably annoyed because the strange young man, who was a traveller from Messrs. Brown & Smedley, came to help in the hitching-up process.

“I do not need help, thank you,” she said, in a frosty tone.

“I can quite believe that you do not, still it is a pleasure to do something, all the same,” said the unknown, who did not appear to be easily rebuffed; for he had calmly taken the business into his own hands, and Bertha found herself relegated to the position of mere onlooker, which made her more vexed than before. She told herself it was like cool impertinence to thrust her on one side in this fashion.

So she stood silent and ungracious, then, when the wagon was ready, she mounted with a brief word of thanks and drove off, glad to get away from those calmly scrutinizing eyes.

Poor old Pucker had a good deal of stick on the return journey also, but he was a horse that mostly needed considerable encouragement of this kind. Moreover, Bertha was sick with anxiety on account of Grace, who had never been left alone since the accident. She had not had time to think about her before, the need had been too desperate, but now—well, Pucker had to do his very best in the matter of speed, that was all, while the empty wagon bounced and bumped, threatening to overturn at least half a dozen times, yet never quite managing to do it.

What a relief it was when the house and barn came in sight! What a still greater relief when she drove up to the gate of the paddock, to find Dicky running to open it for her! And when she had driven through, and the gate was shut again, she stopped the horse and reached down to help the adventurous Dicky to climb up beside her.

“Have you taken good care of Mummy?” she asked, letting Pucker cross the paddock at a walk, because she felt that she could not bear any more bumping just then.

“Of coorse I has,” replied Dicky, with a great deal of swagger. “But I just wish that I had been able to come and help you fight the fire, Bertha. Wasn’t it fine?”

“No, it was not—it was horrible!” she exclaimed, with a shudder, thinking of some of the moments when she was almost at the point of despair before help came.

“I shouldn’t have been afraid, at least not much,” said the small boy, with a sigh; and then he burst out: “I say, Bertha, a man has been here since you went away.”

“What man?” asked Bertha sharply, thinking that if it were a stranger, Grace must have been dreadfully upset.

“I don’t know, and I don’t like him either, though he gave me half a dollar, and he gave Molly another,” said Dicky, frowning heavily. In his estimation people who could bestow largess to that amount ought to be in every way satisfactory, which made it disappointing when they were not.

Bertha drove up to the house with very active wonder stirring in her mind, and, jumping down, she lifted Dicky out also, and then hurried indoors to see how it fared with Grace. One look at the face on the pillow was enough to show Bertha that the excitement of the afternoon had been far too much for the invalid, and, letting everything else go, she set herself to the task of making poor Grace quiet and composed once more.

“Is the fire under?” asked Grace, who was wild-eyed with fear and agitation.

“Yes, it is quite out; but Mr. Smith and Mr. Humphries are both there, and one of them will stay until there is no more fear of it lighting up again, though it looks as if it might rain, in which case there will not be any danger at all,” said Bertha. And then she refused to talk, or to let Grace talk, finally succeeding in getting the invalid off to sleep for a short time. Not a word had Grace said of any person having been at the house, and Bertha might have been inclined to think that Dicky had dreamed it but for those two half-dollars, which he and Molly displayed so proudly when she went out to them in the paddock after their mother had dropped into a doze.

Having unhitched Pucker and turned the old animal loose to feed, she went indoors to change her singed and dirty garments, and incidentally to wash her face.

“Oh! oh! what an unutterable fright I look!” she gasped, staring at herself in the glass, and reflecting ruefully that Mrs. Smith had not looked bad at all; there had not been the shadow of a smudge across her face, and her hair, although a little loosened by the wind and the hard work, had been quite passably tidy.

But Bertha’s heavy masses of hair were hanging down her back, her face was streaked and smudged with dust and blacks, her blouse was torn open at the neck and slit up the arm where it had taken fire, and her skirt was a ruin.

“It is my fate to look a most awful guy when I am forced to do anything out of the common,” she muttered to herself, as she washed her face with tremendous zeal and energy, and then, as she did her hair, she recalled that time when she had been forced to swim out to the Shark’s Teeth at Mestlebury in that dreadful garment with the patches of vivid green.

Suddenly she dropped her comb with a clatter, and stood before the glass with her hands tightly clasped. She was recalling the face of the man whose life she had saved. He reminded her of—of—of whom?

“Why, why, I do believe that the man with the Smiths to-day was the very same individual!” she gasped. “But surely, surely the coincidence is too ridiculous!” and she laughed nervously as she stooped to pick up the comb; then she twisted up her hair in a great hurry, clothed herself in tidy garments, and went out to get supper.

There was little room in her busy days for dreaming now, and to-night she seemed more driven than ever. Grace was decidedly unwell from the strain and excitement of the afternoon, while the children were tired, hungry, and, truth to tell, rather cross; for the day had been fiercely hot, and they had been running about since early morning.

For a time her one pair of hands were more than full, but when the little ones had been fed, washed, and put to bed, there was a brief half-hour of respite in which she could sit still and think. And the more she thought the more sure she was that the man with the Smiths to-day and the individual whom she had saved from the Shark’s Teeth rocks were one and the same person. To-morrow she would go over to Mrs. Smith and ask for the name of the unknown. Then she would write to him and tell him that she was the girl who had saved him, and she would remind him that she had his coat still, if he wished to claim it again.

Would she write to him?

She was remembering what the fat German had told her about the man having left money to be given to her, which old Mrs. Saunders had appropriated. Well, what of that? Surely she could tell him that she had never had the money, and did not want it. But it would be a horribly difficult task. If she told him that she had never had a reward for what she had done, it would seem, it must seem, as if she were asking for something, and all her pride was up in arms at the mere suggestion. But there were the diamonds! If she kept them and said nothing at all, how much better would she be than a thief?

Then again came the old question, why had the man never made exhaustive enquiries for his valuables, which he surely must have missed long ago? If he had come by them honestly, he of course must have made a fuss, and that he had made no move at all made it look very much as if he did not dare to make a stir. Oh, it was altogether a most worrying business! If it had not been for the valuables in her possession, she would not have minded so much. Indeed, she would not have minded at all. But these, of course, made all the difference.

Tom was late in getting back with the reaper and binder which he had gone to fetch, and Bertha knew that Grace was uneasy about him. She was just going indoors to see what could be done by way of cheering the invalid up, when she heard the clank of machinery in the distance, and guessed that he was coming along the trail. Calling to Grace that she was going to open the paddock gate, she set off across the sun-dried pasture at a run, and had the gate open before the horses reached the place. But instead of driving on to the house and leaving her to come slowly after him, Tom jumped off the machinery and came up to her, seizing her hand and nearly wringing it off.

“Bertha, you are a brick, a downright brick!” he said, and his voice was so unsteady, that to her alarm she saw he was on the verge of breakdown.

“It is of no use to call me nice things,” she said, and her voice was more harsh than she knew. “I am afraid that I should have been too much of a coward to have stirred half a dozen steps to fight that fire alone. It was Grace who spurred me on to do it, so the credit does not belong to me.”

“The town thinks differently, I can tell you,” said Tom heartily. “And, my word, you were plucky! Smith said that your clothes were burning on you when they drove up.”

“Yes, they were, and the pathetic part of it was that I had come to the end of my water, so what would have happened to me if they had not come along just then, I cannot imagine. I rolled frantically, but the ground was so hot that I could not quench the fire,” said Bertha, with a nervous laugh that was very near to being a sob.

“Were you badly hurt?” asked Tom, with an air of concern, realizing what a grave risk she had run to save his wheat and that of his neighbours from destruction.

“I was not hurt at all; that is the incredible part of it,” said Bertha. “But I think that what saved me was the fact that I had torn the sleeve of my blouse badly in swarming up and down to get the water from the wagon, so when my sleeve caught fire it did not touch my arm. Does anyone know what started the blaze?”

“Smith said that he found a piece of a glass bottle lying to windward of the burned patch, so doubtless it was the focusing of the sun’s rays on the glass which set the corn on fire. It might have been a very serious matter for me, and would have about spelled ruin, I am afraid,” Tom replied gravely.

Bertha nodded in complete understanding, and then she offered to unhitch the horses for him while he went in to talk to Grace.

But this he would not hear of, declaring that she must be far more tired than he was, which was most likely true. So leaving her to hold the horses for a minute, while he went in to assure his wife that he had reached home safe and sound, he came out again and unharnessed, while Bertha put his supper ready and did those other things which were necessary. Then she went away to her bed, leaving husband and wife together. Bedtime was one of the hardest parts of her hard days just now, for that was when regrets rose up and assailed her, and she had neither the strength nor the philosophy to keep them at bay. And to-night the struggle bade fair to be harder than common, for in her hurried dressing, when she came back from fighting the fire, she had come across the package containing the story which she had been writing on the evening when Grace had her bad fall.

To be shut back from the life she loved and longed for, and forced into a round of drudgery which led to nothing, was surely the hardest discipline that any girl ever had to face. But there was no help for it. She knew very well that no one could have taken her place in the little house at Duck Flats and filled it as she was filling it now. There was nothing heroic in Bertha’s nature, or at least she thought that there was not, so she got no satisfaction from the fact of her self-sacrifice, and indeed did not consider it in the light of self-sacrifice at all; it was merely that she had to do the work, that there was no way out of it, and no one else to do it.

Poor girl! Her mood was very bitter to-night. She was too ignorant to know that she could not write words that would live until she had been taught by that hardest of taskmasters—experience. Her idea of life hitherto had been to dream the precious days away, to spend hours in analysing her own moods, and then to write feeble verse upon the results. Then Grace, knowing the commercial valuelessness of that sort of poetry, had directed her attention to stories, but these could have been in the end no better than the poetry, seeing how deficient her education had been and how narrow her outlook was.

But it was hard, so very hard, to grub when one wanted to soar. And it was small wonder that when she laid her head on her pillow that night, Bertha yielded to the weakness of tears and cried herself to sleep, which perhaps had a beneficial effect upon her by relieving the strain of her nerves and making her rest more profound.

She was in a whirl of domestic work the next morning, washing up dishes on the veranda, where she did every bit of the housework that it was possible to carry out-of-doors, when Tom came along and, seizing the dish-towel, started to wipe a great pile of plates and basins while he talked, which is a little way they have of economizing in time on the prairies, where time is of more value than money, especially in harvest.

“Did you know that Uncle Joe came here yesterday?” he asked, his voice a little lower than usual, as if he did not want what he said to reach the ears of Grace, who had not yet been brought out of her bedroom.

“Do you mean the uncle that cast you off?” she asked, staring at him in a dazed fashion, and then, suddenly remembering the children’s talk of the man who had come and had given them half a dollar each, she said, “I really thought that the children must have dreamed it, because Grace did not say anything about it to me.”

“Grace is badly upset, poor girl, for I do not think that the old man was any too kind in the things he said to her. She won’t tell me everything, but she is quite transparent enough for me to be able to read between the lines, as it were, and she forgets how well I know the old man. But I guess that if I had come along yesterday and heard him telling her that an invalid wife and a houseful of little children were enough to take the spirit out of any man, that even his grey hairs would not have saved him from the thrashing he so jolly well deserved,” said Tom, in a wrathful tone, putting the basin he was wiping down with such a bang that it was quite wonderful that it was not damaged by the treatment.

“But I don’t understand.” Bertha looked at Tom in a puzzled fashion. “I thought that you had quite lost sight of your uncle, that he did not know where you lived or anything about you. So how did he know where to find you out here?”

“That is the funny part of it.” Tom started on another basin as he talked, and this one being rather badly cracked, he handled it in a gingerly fashion. “It seems that the old man knows you, and it is through that he found out where I lived.”

“Well, I haven’t the pleasure of his acquaintance, so it is a rather one-sided sort of knowledge,” said Bertha, poking a pile of plates into the dish pan and using the mop vigorously.

“Just so, but there are similar cases on record,” answered Tom. “For instance, you and I know the German Emperor, the President of the United States, not to speak of the King of England, yet none of these gentlemen have the slightest knowledge of us. It is the penalty of greatness to be known and not to know.”

“Don’t you think it would be quicker to tell me plain out what you mean, instead of talking in riddles?” asked Bertha, with an air of exasperation; then she said, with a little jump of amazement which made the dishes rattle, “Was that old man who was taken ill in the train when I was coming here your Uncle Joe? What an astonishing coincidence!”

“Just what I thought,” remarked Tom dryly. “But it is the sort of coincidence that I could do without, seeing how the old fellow contrived to upset Grace, who has enough to bear without stings of this sort being added on to her load. It is rather curious, though, the old man was always taunting me with wanting his money when I lived with him, and now that he has lost it all, or nearly all, he takes the trouble to look me up to see if I can help him.”

“But why did he not stay to see you, or at least wait until I came back?” asked Bertha.

“I expect he thought there was not enough chance of getting what he wanted,” said Tom, “though Grace said that he told her he might give us a look in on his way back from Rotten Edge. He asked Grace if I could lend him five hundred dollars for six months, but she told him that the visit of the specialist had made us so poor that we should have our hands full to keep out of debt until the wheat was sold.”

“Does Grace know how much that cost? Oh, I thought that you did not mean to tell her!” cried Bertha, in a reproachful tone.

Tom shrugged his shoulders and wiped away energetically, then remarked, “Grace always could turn me inside out. You see, I am no match for her in point of cleverness, and when she wants to know a thing she mostly gets her own way. I told her that it did not matter to her, and that if it had cost twice as much, I would still have had the specialist.”

“What did she say to that?” asked Bertha, laughing a little; for well she knew that Tom was quite right when he said that he was no match for Grace, who always seemed to twist him round her little finger.

“Oh, she was very cross, and declared that she would have to make haste and get better, if only to save me the expense of a funeral,” said Tom; but he winced as he spoke, for Grace was everything to him, and the bare mention of her dying was more than he could endure.

“Oh, if the days were a little longer, what a comfort it would be!” sighed Bertha, as she hurried to and fro setting out a supper for the harvest helpers on the veranda.

“So far as you are concerned, I think that it is a pity that they are quite so long,” said Grace, who could do no more to help in the rush of work than to tell Bertha when a saucepan was going to boil over. Yet even that was a help, and Bertha toiled through the hard days all the more easily for knowing how genuinely sorry for her Grace was.

The wheat was almost all cut. For a week past the binder had been driven round and round the waving squares of wheat, until now it stood in stooks ripening in the sun. But to-night a threshing machine had puffed and panted its way across the uneven trails from Pentland Broads, drawing behind the engine the various parts of machinery necessary for sacking the grain and disposing of the straw. While it was at Duck Flats the men who came with it would have to be boarded, and hence the extra work which made Bertha long for the days to be more stretchable in the matter of time.

From morning to night no one thought or talked of anything but wheat, how it was coming down, how it was ripening in the stooks, and how it would thresh out. Bertha went even a little further than this, and dreamed of wheatfields night after night; but they were always covered with snow in her dreams, just as they had been when she first came to Manitoba. She had keyed herself up for the extra work of the harvest time, while Grace from her couch, like a good general, planned the campaign. Both of them knew that, when the threshing was over, and the grain had been drawn to the depot at Rownton, the days would be long and silent, and to a certain extent full of leisure; but if only a few hours of that future leisure could have been mortgaged for the needs of the present, how glad they would both have been.

Then one morning Bertha got up with one of the worst headaches that she had ever known, and was wondering however she would manage to get through the long, hard day of baking, boiling, and stewing for the hungry men who were working so hard afield. The numbers were to be reinforced to-day by a party of neighbours from Pentland Broads and another engine; so there would be double the number to provide for, and meals would have to be duplicated, as the men would feed in relays.

“But I must get through, I must,” she said to herself, as she leaned over a basin of the coldest water she could get, and tried what bathing her head would do towards lessening the pain.

But the headache was due to overstrain, and it was not a matter of cold water that was going to cure it. She was still slopping the cold water on to her face, when she heard a wagon drive past the window and stop before the door.

“The Pentland Broads lot, I expect,” she said to herself in a languid tone, and, wiping her face with a towel, she went out to receive them; for she was not quite sure where Tom was just then, and the second engine was to work over on the farther section of the Duck Flats land. Then she saw that there was a little woman seated among the men, and she gave a glad cry as she recognized Eunice Long.

“Oh, I wonder if you can even faintly guess how glad I am to see you!” she cried, and suddenly the long, hard day looked as if it might be not only bearable, but to a certain sense enjoyable.

“That is good hearing. I like to be sure of my welcome when I go anywhere,” said Eunice, with a laugh, as she submitted to the vigorous hugging which Bertha bestowed upon her. “But you look about tired out before the day begins, child! What have you been doing to yourself?”

“I don’t know,” said Bertha, radiant content in her tone. “My head was aching pretty badly awhile ago, but it is going to get better now that you have come.”

“I suppose that you were a bit daunted by having so many to feed; but it is wonderful how easy it is to provide for hungry men. They are certain to appreciate everything that is set before them, and they are not very particular, as a rule, provided there is no shortage. What is to do first? Have you enough bread?” asked Eunice, who was tying on a businesslike apron.

“I did a big baking of cakes and pies yesterday, as well as bread,” replied Bertha, opening the pantry door and proudly displaying the stores within. “In fact, I was making and baking the whole day long; but there are all the vegetables to get ready, and they will want a great lot, because it is so hot that they will not be able to eat so much meat.”

“Then I will set to work on the vegetables straight away,” said Eunice. “And look here, Bertha, don’t you think that it would be a good thing if I cooked some of them now, so that there are dishes of cold vegetables as well as hot? The poor fellows do love cold things when they are working in the heat and the dust at threshing times.”

“That would be a good idea,” said Bertha, sighing with relief to think how it would lessen the rush of work later on to have some of the things cooked now. “I will come and help you, and we can soon have a lot of them on to boil.”

“No, you won’t,” said Eunice, with decision. “You will just drop everything and lie down on your bed for an hour and half. I can do without you for so long, and it will make all the difference to the comfort with which you can get through the day. Don’t worry about the time to get up; I will call you, I promise, so you can go to sleep with a clear conscience.”

“Oh, but it seems too bad to do that when you are here! I want to be with you all the time,” said Bertha; but her objections to resting were only half-hearted, and five minutes after she had put her head on the pillow of her unmade bed she was fast asleep, and did not wake until she roused to see Eunice standing beside her holding a steaming cup of coffee just ready for drinking.

“Have I slept too long?” asked Bertha, in alarm, for it seemed to her that she had been lying there for a very long time.

“No, dear, the time I gave you is barely up yet; but Mrs. Ellis wanted you to go into her room when you did wake, so I thought that you would be easier in your mind to be wakened in good time,” said Eunice, who looked very warm from her active exertions at the stove.

“Isn’t she so well?” asked Bertha, in alarm. Grace stayed in her room this morning, because that would leave the kitchen a little freer for all the bustle of feeding that had to be got ready there.

“I think that she is all right; but she had a letter that she wanted you to see, and you need not hurry her if she wants to talk it out with you, for I can manage very well for a little longer,” said Eunice, in the unflurried tone which always made her seem such a restful person.

Bertha jerked her head in token that she understood, but she was scalding herself too badly with the coffee for speech just then.

Grace had a twinkle of fun in her eyes, for even the tragedy of her condition could not wholly dim the brightness of her spirit. There was an open letter fixed in one of her helpless hands, and she was looking at it when Bertha came in at the door.

“Are you better, poor thing?” asked Grace, who found it so much more natural to be sorry for other people than for herself.

“Yes, thank you; I feel much more fit now that I have been to sleep. What have you there? Something that you wish me to read to you?” asked Bertha, pointing to the letter.

“I think that you had better read it to yourself and tell me what you make of it,” said Grace, with a low laugh. “It is from your old man, Tom’s beautiful Uncle Joe.”

Bertha took the letter, but at first was troubled to understand the queer, crabbed handwriting, which was plainly characteristic of the writer, then finally this is what she made it out to be—