CHAPTER XX
THE corn was husked. The year's work in the fields was over. Wully had sold from sixty of the acres for which his father had paid two hundred and ten dollars in sixty-four, wheat worth three thousand and sixty dollars. He had his house all paid for now. He owned three hundred acres of land, some of it a bit farther west, where a bushel of wheat still bought an acre of the faithful soil. His little pines had grown steadily, and his orchard, now that the grasses and weeds were frosted, was visible to the naked eye from the house, a lot of little switches ready to stand bravely against the gales. Everything prospered with him. Everything, except for that shadow of evil that clouded their lives hatefully. Every day Wully's mind dwelt futilely upon the problem of Peter Keith's fate. And Chirstie's eyes, he observed, still shifted apprehensively under their tender lids.
And what was he to do now, when he must go to the timber for his winter's supply of wood? When he must leave early in the morning, and return at nightfall? He couldn't leave her alone. He had remarked to one neighbor and another that he wanted some man to bring his wood home for hire. But he found no man willing to do his
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