The road angles here. Bell's farm consists of three
quartersections; the southwest quarter lends its diagonal
for the trail. I had hardly made the turn, however, when
a car came to meet me. It stopped. The school-inspector
of the district looked out. I drew in and returned his
greeting, half annoyed at being thus delayed. But his
very next word made me sit up. He had that morning
inspected my wife's school and seen her and my little
girl; they were both as well as they could be. I felt so
glad that I got out of my buggy to hand him my pouch of
tobacco, the which he took readily enough. He praised my
wife's work, as no doubt he had reason to do, and I should
have given him a friendly slap on the shoulder, had not
just then my horse taken it into his head to walk away
without me.

I believe I was whistling when I got back to the buggy
seat. I know I slapped the horse's rump with my lines
and sang out, "Get up, Peter, we still have a matter of
nearly thirty miles to make."

The road becomes pretty much a mere trail here, a rut-track,
smooth enough in the rut, where the wheels ran, but rough
for the horse's feet in between.

To the left I found the first untilled land. It stretched
far away to the west, overgrown with shrub-willow,
wolf-willow and symphoricarpus--a combination that is
hard to break with the plow. I am fond of the silver