"Well," was Mr. Bronson's first comment, "I had an idea that Battick was not quite right in his head. But I guess he is sane enough. And an educated man, too, isn't he?" "I should not wonder if he were college-bred; only he has grown careless of speech. And he certainly is a crank." "Who could blame him?" muttered Mr. Bronson thoughtfully. They discussed the matter at some length, and gradually Hiram got around to a plan that had formed in the back of his mind since he had learned so much about Yancey Battick's new wheat. Hiram had come by this time to know his employer pretty well. Not only was Mr. Stephen Bronson a money-maker and deeply interested in any new agricultural idea, but he was the sort of business man who is always willing to take a legitimate chance. If Mr. Bronson had a choice of making a sure ten dollars and a possible hundred dollars, he would naturally take the long chance. It was characteristic of him to be immediately interested by the story of Yancey Battick's wonderful new wheat. And when Hiram pointed out a way by which Battick, Bronson and Hiram himself might form a partnership to breed and exploit the new variety of grain without taking any seedhouse into the scheme, Mr. Bronson was eager for it. "If you can make Battick see it, I'll find all the cash necessary. A seed firm would want to hog it--they always do. Battick must know that. If he's got a good grain and we can introduce it ourselves to the grain farmers farther west, we'll all make money," Mr. Bronson declared with enthusiasm. That very week Hiram arranged a meeting and the three discussed the plan fully in the shaded dooryard of the old Pringle homestead. The loss of his whole crop--a possible forty and surely thirty bushels of the grain--had vastly discouraged Yancey Battick. The sensible way in which Hiram had approached him before introducing Mr. Bronson into the matter encouraged the unfortunate wheat breeder to look favorably upon the assistance that Mr. Bronson was able and willing to lend. Whether the wheat stack had been set on fire maliciously or had been destroyed by accident, as Hiram had pointed out, the fact remained that if the crop had been properly handled the grain would not have been destroyed. In the first place, the wheat had not been allowed to cure long enough in the shock before being stacked. Battick admitted that he had only stacked it because he dared not leave the shocks in the field for long. He had camped in the field with his gun every night until he built the stack at the barn. In fact, to conserve the wheat and handle it in the best shape, it should have been cured in the shock and then thrashed immediately, afterwards being spread in a proper granary. There was no granary on the old Pringle place and the rats and mice were a pest, as Hiram had seen the first time he had met Yancey Battick.