THE FACE AT THE WINDOW It was a hot morning when Sergeant Stimson and Corporal Payne rode towards the railroad across the prairie.

The grassy levels rolled away before them, white and parched, into the blue distance, where willow grove and straggling bluff floated on the dazzling horizon, and the fibrous dust rose in little puffs beneath the horses' feet, until Stimson pulled his beast up in the shadow of the birches by the bridge, and looked back towards Silverdale.

There, wooden homesteads girt about with barns and granaries rose from the whitened waste, and behind some of them stretched great belts of wheat.

Then the Sergeant, understanding the faith of the men who had sown that splendid grain, nodded, for he was old and wise, and had seen many adverse seasons, and the slackness that comes, when hope has gone, to beaten men.
"They will reap this year--a handful of cents on every bushel," he said.

"A fine gentleman is Colonel Barrington, but some of them will be thankful there's a better head than the one he has, at Silverdale." "Yes, sir," said Corporal Payne, who wore the double chevrons for the first time, and surmised that his companion's observations were not without their purpose.
Stimson glanced at the bridge.