[Pg 47]He rode away and Harding started his oxen. It might have been more prudent to make a few concessions and conciliate the Colonel, but Harding could not bring himself to do so. It seemed a shabby course. It was better that the Allenwood settlers should know at the beginning how matters stood and of what type their new neighbor was.

From all that Harding had learned of Colonel Mowbray, he felt that this stretch of grassland would not be turned into a glowing sea of wheat without more than one conflict between himself and the head of Allenwood.

[Pg 48]

CHAPTER V
THE SPENDTHRIFT

Kenwyne felt pleasantly languid as he lounged in a basket-chair after his evening meal. He had been back-setting land since daybreak. Holding the plow was an occupation almost unknown to the Allenwood settlers, who left all the rougher work to their hired men. Kenwyne, however, was of a practical turn of mind; and, having invested all his money in his farm, he meant to get some return. He occasionally enjoyed a run with the coyote hounds, or a day's shooting when the migrating geese and ducks rested among the sloos; but for the most part he stuck steadily to his work and, as he bought the latest implements, he was considered richer than he really was. Though thirty, he was unmarried; an elderly Scottish housekeeper looked after him.

One of the obstacles to Allenwood's progress was that the bachelors outnumbered the married men; and the difficulty seemed insuperable. The settlers belonged to an exclusive caste, and few young Englishwomen of education and refinement had shown themselves willing to face the hardships of the prairie life; though these were softened at Allenwood by many of the