Prescott of Saskatchewan by Harold Bindloss

It was Saturday evening, clear and cold, though the frost was not intense. A number of the farmers and their wives had driven in to Sebastian to meet their friends and make their weekly purchases. A row of light rigs stood outside the livery-stable, voices and laughter rose from the sidewalks; the town looked cheerful and almost picturesque with its roofs and tall elevator towers cutting against the soft night sky.

A full moon hung above them, but its silvery radiance was paled by other lights. Warm gleams shone out from the store windows upon the hard-trodden snow; a train of lighted cars stood at the station, and the intense white glare of the head-lamp mingled with the beam flung far across the prairie by a freight locomotive on a side-track. Groups of people strolled up and down the low platform, waiting to see the train go out, and their voices rang merrily on the frosty air. From one of the great shadowy elevators there came a whirr of wheels.