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threshing, he had paid off only eight hundred, covering the balance by a renewal note. In the spring he had planted a four-rowed wind-break of black poplar, with spruces interspersed along the north and west lines of the yard. There were other changes which Nicoll inspected and duly admired. The whole of what was now Abe’s half section was fenced; and the land was divided by a cross-fenced pasture of twenty acres, extending from the rear of hishuge, red, curb-roofed barn for twenty rods west and for half a mile north. In the house which he had bought for Hall lived Bill Crane who had been a notorious idler in town but who, having married, seemed to have changed his ways, for young Mrs. Crane could often be heard shrilly driving her man to work in the morning. Hall, having received eight hundred dollars, had turned over to Abe his newly acquired title and left for parts unknown. Abe had a hundred acres of this new land under crop; and sixty acres were freshly broken when Nicoll appeared. The total number of horses on the place was eleven now, not counting three colts born in the new barn. Ten cows were being milked; and there were steers and heifers besides, and pigs and fowl.
    Nicoll, medium-sized, middle-aged, bearded, deliberate, went about and looked at it all. “You say you came here with a few wagon-loads of truck and slept on the ground for the first two weeks?”
    â€œThat’s what I said.” They were standing in the open door of the magnificent barn. Opposite, in front of the house–for with the new room and the gable roof it was hardly a shack any longer–two youngsters played about; and a cradle stood in the shade north of the building. This cradle held a little girl called Mary, after her aunt, though, to avoid confusion, her parents had resolved to change the name to Marion, which was the first name of Ruth’s mother.
    Nicoll smiled up at Abe, sighing. It would have been hard to define his expression. Ordinarily he seemed to look into himself rather than at the things surrounding him. Now he seemed ready to be impressed. At times his look verged on adoration and yet seemed on the point of turning on itself and, in a smile half veiled by the reddish beard streaked with grey, of becoming tinged with a gentle irony. Abe was by farthe younger man of the two; but the way in which Nicoll looked at him might have suggested that he gave him credit for superior wisdom and experience while at the same time half mocking at it.
    In spite of the fact that Abe could not understand the man’s hesitation he was attracted. To him the world was a thing to be conquered, waiting to take the impress of his mind and will. Nicoll seemed rather to look for a niche to slip into, unnoticed and unobserved.
    â€œYou,” Nicoll said at last, “were of course in a different position when you arrived. “You had capital.”
    â€œI had five thousand dollars.”
    Nicoll seemed to shrink within himself. “As I said,” he muttered, with his curious smile. “Dukes and lords…” He had said nothing of the kind; but perhaps he had thought it.
    â€œBut look what I’ve got!” Abe said impulsively. “This barn cost me three thousand dollars. My stock is worth two any day. And all that”–indicating, by a sweep of his arm, the fields with their crops–“is clear profit, not to mention the rest of my equipment. I had nothing but a hand plough when I came. Before I’m through, I’ll be farming whole sections of land, ploughing with tractors, an acre every two minutes.”
    â€œNo doubt,” Nicoll said. “Dukes and lords. How about the margin?”
    â€œThe profit? Before I’m through, I’ll build a house over there fit to stand in any city.”
    Nicoll repeated, “No doubt!” not hesitatingly this time, but decisively. “Not a doubt on earth!…But I didn’t mean it that way. Do you find time to live?