"I am obliged to you, but I
fancy this has gone far enough," he said. "There is one man who has
done more for you than I could ever do. Prosperity is a good thing,
but you, at least, know what he has aimed at stands high above that.
May you have the Head of the Silverdale community long with you!"
CHAPTER XIX
UNDER TEST
The prairie lay dim and shadowy in the creeping dusk when Winston sat
on a redwood stringer near the head of his partly-finished bridge.
There was no sound from the hollow behind him but the faint gurgle of
the creek, and the almost imperceptible vibration of countless minute
wings. The birches which climbed the slope to it wound away sinuously,
a black wall on either hand, and the prairie lying gray and still
stretched back into the silence in front of him. Here and there a
smoldering fire showed dully red on the brink of the ravine, but the
tired men who had lighted them were already wrapped in heavy slumber.
The prairie hay was gathered, harvest had not come, and for the last
few weeks Winston, with his hired men from the bush of Ontario, had
toiled at the bridge with a tireless persistency which had somewhat
astonished the gentlemen farmers of Silverdale. They, however, rode
over every now and then, and most cheerfully rendered what assistance
they could, until it was time to return for tennis or a shooting
sweepstake, and Winston thanked them gravely, even when he and his
Ontario axmen found it necessary to do the work again.
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