"No," Bela confessed. "Some day I will. Don' stop. I lak hear it all."

"Well, me with my untidy clothes, I was a thorn in the side of those ladies. Visibly turned up their noses when I came around. One day after a big row with my eldest brother I just walked off. I've been regularly up against it ever since. Just a year ago. Seems more like ten. I've lived a thousand lives.

"You take a big baby like I was and throw him on the world--well, he won't have to go to h.e.l.l to find out what it's like! I've learned in one year what most fellows take twenty to soak in. Now I'm beginning to see light, to get solid ground under my feet. Of course, I haven't got anything yet"--Sam smiled here--"but I know what I want."

"What you want?" asked Bela quickly.

"To live a natural life. I've found out that is what I was made for.

Anything all laid out and regular like school or business simply floors me. I want a little piece of land of my own, all my own. I'll build my own house on it and raise my own grub. I want to do what I want without anybody else's say-so. That way I feel I can make good.

The idea is to build up something that you can see grow."

"All alone?" asked Bela with a casual air.

Sam's heart missed a beat, then overtook it.

"I like to be alone," he said quickly. "That's what I came up here for. I have made up my mind to it. I don't get along well with people."

Bela was silent.

CHAPTER IX

BELA'S ANSWER

From time to time Bela glanced narrowly at Sam through her lashes. He presented a terrific problem to one of her inexperience. She found this friendly interchange delightful, but was it all?

She had no feeling of being a woman to him. She began to feel a great dissatisfaction. An imperious instinct urged her to sting him out of his comfortable disregard of her s.e.x. Her opportunity came when Sam said:

"You have never told me what it was you wanted to talk to me about."

"All those men want marry me," she said off-hand.

It was instantly effective. Sam sat up abruptly and stared at her in astonishment. Was she, after all, the evil woman he had first thought?

Had he been deceitfully lulled into security? She repeated her statement. His face hardened.

"So I gathered," he replied sarcastically.

Bela was secretly pleased by the effect. "What you think 'bout it?"

she asked.

"I don't think anything about it," he answered with an angry flash.

"I not know what to tell them," said Bela. It had a faint theatrical ring, which might have suggested to a discriminating ear that she was not being altogether candid.

Sam obstinately closed his mouth.

"Which you lak best?" she asked presently, "the big one, the black one, the red one, yo'ng one?"

A great discomposure seized upon Sam. Anger pounded at his temples, and insane words pressed to his tongue. He put on the clamps. "What I think is neither here nor there," he said stiffly. "It's up to you to make your own choice. Why drag me into it?"

"You say you want be friend," explained Bela. "So I think you help me."

"n.o.body can help you in a matter of this kind," said Sam. "Lord, you talk like a wooden man!" Something whispered to him while he said it.

"Why?" she asked with one of her sidelong looks.

Again his eyes flashed on her in angry pain. G.o.d! Was the woman trying to madden him?

"A girl must make her own choice," his tongue said primly.

"But you could tell me about them, which is the best man. How do I know?"

This on the face of it seemed like a reasonable request, but his breast still pa.s.sionately rebelled.

"Well, I won't!" he snapped. "If that's all you want to talk about I'd better go."

"Is Big Jack a good man?" she persisted.

Sam got up.

"No, don't go!" she cried quickly. "I'll be good. I don't know why you always mad at me."

Neither did Sam himself know. He looked at her dumbly with eyes full of pain and confusion. He sat down again.

For a while she made light conversation about muskrats and beavers, but when she thought he was safely settled down, womanlike, she was obliged to return to the forbidden subject.

There was a pain in her breast as well as his. What was the matter with him that he treated her so despite-fully? How else could she find out what was in his heart but by making him lose his temper?

"Maybe I tak' Big Jack," she remarked casually.

"All right," returned Sam bitterly.

"He's the richest."

"A regular woman's reason," said Sam. "I wish you joy."

Would nothing move him? Bela felt as if she were beating with her hands on a rock. "What do you care?" she asked insolently. Both voices rang with bitterness now.

"I don't care."

She sneered.

"What you get mad for?"

Sam's endurance gave way. He sprang up.