Part 3 (1/2)

”Since I'd like to make Kelshope before dark, perhaps you had better get going,” Margaret remarked.

Jimmy picked up the bag and fastened the deerskin straps, by which it hung from his shoulders like a rucksack. They started, and for a time he kept up with Margaret, but he did not talk. The pack was heavy, he had not had much breakfast and had gone without his lunch. Besides, his leg was getting very sore. At length he stopped and began to loose the straps.

”Do you mind if I take a smoke?” he asked.

Margaret looked at him rather hard, but said she did not mind, and Jimmy, indicating a cedar log, pulled out his cigarette case.

”Do you smoke?”

”I do not. In the bush, we haven't yet copied the girls at the hotels.”

”Now I think about it, the girls who smoked at the Montreal hotel were not numerous,” Jimmy remarked. ”When I went to the fis.h.i.+ng lodge in Scotland, all smoked, but then Stannard's friends are very much up-to-date. The strange thing is, we're thought antiquated in the Old Country----”

He stopped and tried to brace up. What he wanted to state eluded him. He felt cold and the pines across the trail got indistinct.

”You see, in some of our circles we rather feel our duty is to be modern,” he resumed with an effort. ”I think you're not like that.

Canada's a new country, but, in a way, one feels you're really older than we are. We have got artificial; you are flesh and blood----”

”Don't talk!” said Margaret firmly, but Jimmy thought her voice was faint, and for a few moments the tall pines melted altogether.

When he looked up Margaret asked: ”Have you got a tobacco pouch?”

Jimmy gave her the pouch and she went off. He was puzzled and rather annoyed, but somehow he could not get on his feet. By and by Margaret came back, carrying the pouch opened like a double cup. Jimmy drank some water and the numbness began to go.

”You're very kind. I expect I'm ridiculous,” he said.

”I was not kind. I let you carry the pack, although the cayuse knocked you down.”

”Perhaps the knock accounts for something,” Jimmy remarked in a languid voice.

He had got a nasty knock, but he imagined Stannard's cigars and Deering's iced drinks were really accountable. In the meantime, he noted that Margaret was wiping his tobacco pouch.

”You mustn't bother,” he resumed. ”Give me the thing.”

”But when it's wet you cannot put in the tobacco.”

”I thought you threw away the stuff. I can get another lot at the hotel.”

Margaret brushed the tobacco from a flake of bark, and filled the pouch.

”In the woods, one doesn't throw away expensive tobacco.”

”Thanks!” said Jimmy. ”Some time since, I lived with people like you.”

”Poor and frugal people?”

”No,” said Jimmy, with a twinkle. ”d.i.c.k and his wife were rather rich.

In fact, in England, I think you begin to use economy when you get rich.