"It's supposed to be a very natural one in the case of a man," said Laura. "You can smoke if you like. I want to talk to you."

Nasmyth stretched himself out on the other side of the fire, and Laura, leaning forward a little, looked at him. Without knowing exactly why, he felt somewhat uneasy beneath her gaze.

"Now," she said, "I would like to hear what you are going to do."

The man made a little rueful gesture. "I don't know. Chop trees again for some rancher, most probably--in fact, I was wondering whether you would have me back as a ranch-hand."

"Ah!" cried the girl sharply, while a trace of hardness crept into her eyes, "that is very much what I expected. As it happens, I am far from satisfied with the man we have, but I should not think of replacing him with you just now."

Nasmyth winced, and it was characteristic of him that he endeavoured to beguile her away from the object she evidently had in view.

"What's the matter with the man?" he asked.

"A diversity of gifts. Among other things, he appears to possess an extensive acquaintance with Colonial politics, and he and my father discuss the regeneration of the Government when they might with advantage be doing something else."

Nasmyth frowned. "I understand. That's one reason why I wanted to come back. After all, there is a good deal I could save you from. In fact, I get savage now and then when I think of what you are probably being left to do upon the ranch. I ventured a hint or two to your father, but he seemed impervious." He hesitated for a moment. "No doubt it's a delicate subject, but it's a little difficult quietly to contemplate the fact that, while those men talk politics, you--"

"I do their work?" suggested Laura with a lifting of her arched eyebrows. "After all, isn't that or something like it what generally happens when men turn their backs upon their task?"

Nasmyth flushed. "I admit that I was trying to break away from mine, but it seems you have undertaken to head me off and drive me back to it again."

"That was more or less what I wished," said Laura quietly.

"Well," Nasmyth replied, "as I think you're a little hard on me, I'll try to put my views before you. To begin with, the dam is done for."

"You are quite sure? You built it so far once. Is it altogether out of the question for you to do as much again?"

Nasmyth felt his face grow hot. She was looking at him with quiet eyes, which had, however, the faintest suggestion of disdain in them.

"The question is why I should want to do it," he said.

"Ah!" rejoined Laura, "you have no aspirations at all? Still, I'm not quite sure that is exactly what I mean--in fact, I think I mean considerably more. You are quite content to throw away your birthright, and relinquish all claim to the station you were born in?"

The man smiled somewhat bitterly. "I think you understand that it's a custom of this country not to demand from any man an account of what he may have done before he came out to it. In my particular case it was, however, nothing very discreditable, and I once had my aspirations, or, as you prefer to consider it, I recognized my obligations. Then the blow fell unexpectedly, and I came out here and became a hired man--a wandering chopper. After all, one learns to be content rather easily, which is in several ways fortunate. Then you instilled fresh aspirations--it's the right word in this case--into me, and I made another attempt, only to be hurled back again. There doesn't seem to be much use in attempting the impossible."

"Then a thing is to be considered impossible after one fails twice?

There are men who fail--and go on again--all their lives long."

"I'm afraid," Nasmyth declared in a dull tone, "I am not that kind of man. After all, to be flung down from the station you were born to--I'm using your own words--and turned suddenly adrift to labour with one's hands takes a good deal of the courage out of one. I almost think if you could put yourself in my place you would understand."

Laura smiled in a suggestive fashion, and looked down at the hands she laid upon her knee. They were capable, as well as shapely, and, as he had noticed more than once, the signs of toil were very plain on them.

"I never did an hour's useful work before I came out West," she said.

She had produced the effect she probably desired, for in the midst of his sudden pity for her Nasmyth was troubled with a sense of shame.

This girl, he realized, had been reared as gently as he had been himself, and he knew that she now toiled most of every day at what in the older country would have been considered most unwomanly tasks.

Still, she had borne with it cheerfully, and had courage to spare for others whose strength was less than hers.

He sat silent for almost a minute, looking down between the great pines into the valley, and, as he did so, he vaguely felt the influence of the wilderness steal over him. The wind had fallen now, and there was a deep stillness in the climbing forest which the roar of the river emphasized. Those trees were vast of girth, and they were very cold. In spite of whirling snow, and gale, and frost, they had grown slowly to an impressive stateliness. In Nature, as he recognized, all was conflict, and it was the fine adjustment of opposing forces that made for the perfection of grace, and strength, and beauty. Then it seemed to him that his companion was like the forest--still, and strong, and stately--because she had been through the stress of conflict too. These were, however, fancies, and he turned around again to her with a sudden resolution expressed in his face and att.i.tude.

"There's an argument you might have used, Miss Waynefleet," he told her. "I said I would try to do you credit, and it almost seems as if I had forgotten it. Well, if you will wait a little, I will try again."

He rose, and, crossing over, stood close beside her, with his hand laid gently on her shoulder, looking down on her with a quiet smile.

"After all," he added, "there's a good deal you might have said that you haven't--in fact, it's one of your strong points that, as a rule, you content yourself with going just far enough. Well, because you wish it, I am somehow going to build that dam again."

She looked up at him swiftly with a gleam in her eyes, and Nasmyth stooped a little, while his hand closed hard upon her shoulder.

"You saved my life, and you have tried to do almost as much in a different way since then," he went on. "It is probably easier to bring a sick man back to health than it is to make him realize his obligations and to imbue him with the courage to face them when it's evident that he doesn't possess it. Still, you can't do things of that kind without results, and I think you ought to know that I belong to you."

There was a trace of colour in Laura Waynefleet's face, and she quivered a little under his grasp, but she looked at him steadily, and read his mind in his eyes. The man was stirred by sudden, evanescent pa.s.sion and exaggerated grat.i.tude, while pity for her had, she fancied, also its effect on him; but that was the last thing she desired, and, with a swift movement, she shook off his hand.

"Ah!" she said; "don't spoil things."

Her tone was quiet, but it was decisive, and Nasmyth, whose face flushed darkly, let his hand fall back to his side. Then she rose, and turned to him.

"If we are to be friends, this must never happen again," she added.

Then they went down the hillside and back to the settlement, where Nasmyth harnessed the team, which the rancher who lived near occasionally placed at Waynefleet's disposal, to a dilapidated waggon.

When she gathered the reins up, Laura smiled down on him.

"After all," she reminded him, "you will remember that I expect you to do me credit."

She drove away, and Nasmyth walked back to his camp beside the dam, where the men were awaiting the six o'clock supper. He leaned upon a pine-stump, looking at them gravely, when he had called them together.

"Boys," he said, "the river, as you know, has wiped out most of the dam. Now, it was a tight fit for me to finance the thing, and I don't get any further payment until the stone-work's graded to a certain level. Well, if you leave me now, I've just enough money in hand to square off with each of you. You see, if you go you're sure of your pay. If you stay, most of the money will go to settle the storekeeper's and the powder bills, and should we fail again, you'll have thrown your time away. I'd like you to understand the thing; but whether you stay or not, I'm holding on."

There was silence for half a minute, and then the men, gathering into little groups, whispered to one another, until Mattawa stood forward.

"All you have to do is to go straight ahead. We're coming along with you solid--every blame one of us," he said.

A red flush crept into Nasmyth's face.

"Thank you, boys. After that I've got to put this contract through,"

he answered.

CHAPTER VII

LAURA MAKES A DRESS

The frost had grown keener as darkness crept over the forest, and the towering pines about the clearing rose in great black spires into the nipping air, but it was almost unpleasantly hot in the little general room of Waynefleet's ranch. Waynefleet, who was fond of physical comfort, had gorged the snapping stove, and the smell of hot iron filled the log-walled room. There was also a dryness in its atmosphere which would probably have had an unpleasant effect upon anyone not used to it. The rancher, however, did not appear to feel it. He lay drowsily in a big hide chair, and his old velvet jacket and evening shoes were strangely out of harmony with his surroundings. Waynefleet made it a rule to dress for the six o'clock meal, which he persisted in calling dinner.

He had disposed of a quant.i.ty of potatoes and apples at the settlement of late, and had now a really excellent cigar in his hand, while a little cup of the Mocha coffee, brought from Victoria for his especial use, stood on the table beside him. Waynefleet had cultivated tastes, and invariably gratified them, when it was possible, while it had not occurred to him that there was anything significant in the fact that his daughter confined herself to the acrid green tea provided by the settlement store. He never did notice a point of that kind, and, if anyone had ventured to call his attention to it, he would probably have been indignant as well as astonished. As a rule, however, n.o.body endeavours to impress unpleasant facts upon men of Waynefleet's character. In their case it is clearly not worth while.

"Do you intend to go on with that dressmaking much longer?" he asked petulantly. "The click of your scissors has an irritating effect on me, and, as you may have noticed, I cannot spread my paper on the table. It cramps one's arms to hold it up."