"To the railroad. They started before the sun was up, but Charley has driven twenty miles to meet one of the Winnipeg cattle-brokers. It's wheat or beef only with most men in this country, but we raise the two, and Charley is thinking of cutting out some stock for the market, though it's very seldom done at this season. We only keep store beasts through the winter, and, as they take their chances in the open, when the snow comes they get poor and thin." Gallwey excused himself in another minute or two, and Carrie, who went back to the house, spent the afternoon lying in a big chair by the stove with a book, of which she read but little. From what she had heard, it was evident that Leland was selling his wheat and cattle at a sacrifice, which, she could understand, he would naturally not have done, could he have helped it. The reflection was not exactly a pleasant one, for though Branscombe Denham had carefully refrained from mentioning to what agreement he and Leland had come, she was, of course, aware that her marriage had relieved him from some, at least, of his financial difficulties. After all, though she had sacrificed herself for him, she could not think highly of her father, and the fact that her husband had been thus compelled to strip himself was painful to contemplate. It placed her under a heavy obligation to Leland, and there was so little she could do, or, at least, was willing to do, that would free her of it. It was dark when he came in, walking stiffly, with his fur coat hard with frost, and her heart smote her again as she saw how his weary face brightened at the sight of her. It cost her an effort to submit to the touch of his lips, but she made it, though she felt her cheeks grow hot, and was sorry she had done so when she saw the glint in his eyes and felt the constraint of his arm. Drawing herself away from him, she slipped back a pace or two. Leland stood looking at her wistfully. "I didn't wish to startle you," he said. "Still, it has been a little hard and lonely here, and I fancied it was going to be different now. I was looking forward to a kind word from you all the twenty miles home." An unusual colour crept into his wife's face. Both of them were glad that Jake limped in just then with the evening meal, which in that country differs in no way from breakfast or the midday dinner. Salt pork, potatoes, apples, flapjacks or hot cakes with molasses, and strong green tea, it is usually very much the same from Winnipeg to Calgary. Few men have more, or desire it, on the prairie, and fewer still have less. At the end of the meal, when Jake had cleared away, Carrie Leland looked up questioningly at her husband, who sat opposite her beside the crackling stove. There was nobody else in the big, bare room. "You haven't told me why it is not convenient for me to have Ada Heaton here just now," she said. "You want her very much?" and again the man glanced at her wistfully.