Part 27 (1/2)

He broke off, and hesitated a moment.

”You see, I know the place.”

”Ah,” said Ida, with no sign of surprise. ”What were you doing there?”

The man smiled rather bitterly.

”I was something similar to head gamekeeper. It wasn't an occupation I cared much about.”

”You got tired of it?”

”Anyway, that wasn't why I gave it up. I was turned out. Fired, they call it in this country.”

Ida for a moment was almost angry with him. She felt, simply because he had said it, that this must be correct as far as it went, but she was equally sure that he could have gone a good deal further. She was, of course, aware that there were a good many men in Canada whose absence from the old country was not regretted by their friends, and she was a little hurt that he did not seem to shrink from the possibility of her setting him down as one of them. She could not know that he was in a very bitter mood just then.

”Well,” she said, ”as you say, it is not likely that I shall have any occasion to mention you, and I certainly won't do it casually. You must, however, be content with that.”

”Yes,” said Weston. ”After all, it really doesn't matter very much anyway.”

Ida let the matter drop, for she had something else to say, and it had been in her mind rather often lately.

”When we leave here you will be without an occupation, won't you?” she asked; and then proceeded somewhat hastily without waiting for him to answer. ”Now, you have done a good deal to make the time pa.s.s pleasantly both here and in British Columbia.”

”It did pa.s.s pleasantly?”

The question was suggestively abrupt, and Ida saw that, as happened now and then, the man was for the moment off his guard. This, however, did not displease her.

”Of course,” she said. ”For that matter it couldn't have been very burdensome to you.”

Weston laughed in a rather curious fas.h.i.+on, and she saw the blood creep into his face.

”I'm glad you have enjoyed it,” he said. ”It seems unfortunately certain that I shall not have another time like this.”

Ida was aware, of course, that the real man had spoken then, but in another moment he once more, as she sometimes described it to herself, drew back into his sh.e.l.l.

”I interrupted what you were going to say,” he observed, with a deprecatory gesture.

”It's very simple,” said the girl. ”If my father or any one else makes you an offer, I should like you to take it. In one sense, chopping trees and shoveling gravel on the track leads to nothing.”

The flush Ida had already noticed grew a little plainer in the man's face, but he smiled.

”I'm afraid I can't promise to do that,” he said. ”You see,” and he seemed to search for words, ”there is a good deal of the vagabond in me. I never could stand the cities, and that ought to be comprehensible to you when you have seen the wilderness.”

”In summer,” said the girl dryly. ”Isn't it very different during the rest of the year?”

”Oh,” declared Weston, ”it's always good in the bush, even when the pines are gleaming spires of white, and you haul the great logs out with the plodding oxen over the down-trodden snow. There is nothing the cities can give one to compare with the warmth of the log shack at night when you lie, aching a little, about the stove, telling stories with the boys, while the s.h.i.+ngles snap and crackle under the frost.

Perhaps it's finer still to stand by with the peevie, while the great trunks go cras.h.i.+ng down the rapids with the freshets of the spring; and then there's the still, hot summer, when the morning air's like wine, and you can hear the clink-clink of the drills through the sound of running water in the honey-scented shade, and watch the new wagon road wind on into the pines. You have seen the big white peaks gleam against the creeping night.”