There was no other human
habitation within a league, only a great waste of whitened grass
relieved about the homestead by the raw clods of the fall plowing, for,
while his scattered neighbors for the most part put their trust in
horses and cattle, Winston had been among the first to realize the
capacities of that land as a wheat-growing country.
Now, clad in well-worn jean trousers and an old deerskin jacket, he
looked down at the bundle of documents on his knee, accounts unpaid, a
banker's intimation that no more checks would be honored, and a
mortgage deed. They were not pleasant reading, and the man's face
clouded as he penciled notes on some of them, but there was no weakness
or futile protest in it. Defeat was plain between the lines of all he
read, but he was going on stubbornly until the struggle was ended, as
others of his kind had done, there at the western limit of the furrows
of the plow and in the great province farther east which is one of the
world's granaries. They went under and were forgotten, but they showed
the way, and while their guerdon was usually six feet of prairie soil,
the wheatfields, mills, and railroads came, for it is written plainly
on the new Northwest that no man may live and labor for himself alone,
and there are many who realizing it instinctively ask very little and
freely give their best for the land that but indifferently shelters
them.
Presently, however, there was a knocking at the door, and though this
was most unusual Winston only quietly moved his head when a bitter
blast came in, and a man wrapped in furs stood in the opening.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27