His wife made no reply for the moment. Lewiston climbed into the
buckboard and gathered up the lines. "Well, here goes for the last try,
Emmie," he said. "Good-by, girl. Maybe things will look better in town
to-day."

"Maybe," she said gravely. She kissed her husband good-by and stood for
some time looking after the buckboard traveling toward the town in a
moving pillar of dust.

"I don't know," she murmured at length; "I don't know just how we're
going to make out."

When he reached town, Lewiston tied the horse to the iron railing in
front of the Odd Fellows' Hall, the ground floor of which was occupied
by the post-office, and went across the street and up the stairway of a
building of brick and granite--quite the most pretentious structure of
the town--and knocked at a door upon the first landing. The door was
furnished with a pane of frosted glass, on which, in gold letters, was
inscribed, "Bridges & Co., Grain Dealers."

Bridges himself, a middle-aged man who wore a velvet skull-cap and who
was smoking a Pittsburg stogie, met the farmer at the counter and the
two exchanged perfunctory greetings.

"Well," said Lewiston, tentatively, after awhile.

"Well, Lewiston," said the other, "I can't take that wheat of yours at
any better than sixty-two."