grass, white in the storm-light, bleaching the rolling surface of the
ground, till the darkness of some cloud-shadow absorbed them; these
things breathed--of a sudden--wildness and desolation. It seemed as
though man could no longer cope with the mere vastness of the earth--an
earth without rivers or trees, too visibly naked and measureless.

"At last I am afraid of it!" said Elizabeth, shivering in her fur coat,
with a little motion of her hand toward the plain. "And what must it be
in winter!"

Anderson laughed.

"The winter is much milder here than in Manitoba! Radiant sunshine day
after day--and the warm chinook-wind. And it is precisely here that the
railway lands are selling at a higher price for the moment than anywhere
else, and that settlers are rushing in. Look there!"

Elizabeth peered through the gloom, and saw the gleam of water. The
train ran along beside it for a minute or two, then the gathering
darkness seemed to swallow it up.

"A river?"

"No, a canal, fed from the Bow River--far ahead of us. We are in the
irrigation belt--and in the next few years thousands of people will
settle here. Give the land water--the wheat follows! South and North,
even now, the wheat is spreading and driving out the ranchers.
Irrigation is the secret. We are mastering it! And you thought"--he
looked at her with amusement and a kind of triumph--"that the country
had mastered us?"