"I can't tell you why I am sure of it--but I
know I am not mistaken."
CHAPTER XXI
THE FACE AT THE WINDOW
It was a hot morning when Sergeant Stimson and Corporal Payne rode
towards the railroad across the prairie. The grassy levels rolled away
before them, white and parched, into the blue distance, where willow
grove and straggling bluff floated on the dazzling horizon, and the
fibrous dust rose in little puffs beneath the horses' feet, until
Stimson pulled his beast up in the shadow of the birches by the bridge,
and looked back towards Silverdale. There, wooden homesteads girt
about with barns and granaries rose from the whitened waste, and behind
some of them stretched great belts of wheat. Then the Sergeant,
understanding the faith of the men who had sown that splendid grain,
nodded, for he was old and wise, and had seen many adverse seasons, and
the slackness that comes, when hope has gone, to beaten men.
"They will reap this year--a handful of cents on every bushel," he
said. "A fine gentleman is Colonel Barrington, but some of them will
be thankful there's a better head than the one he has, at Silverdale."
"Yes, sir," said Corporal Payne, who wore the double chevrons for the
first time, and surmised that his companion's observations were not
without their purpose.
Stimson glanced at the bridge. "Good work," he said. "It will save
them dollars on every load they haul in. A gambler built it! Do they
teach men to use the ax in Montana saloons?"
The corporal smiled, and waited for what he felt would come.
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