her golden top-knot, never her eyes.

John Gaviller apparently never looked at her either, but Colina knew he
was watching her closely. She was not alarmed. She had herself well
in hand, and there was nothing in her politely smiling, slightly
scornful air to give the most anxious parent concern.

Under the jokes, the laughter, and the friendly talk throughout dinner,
there were electric intimations that caused Colina's nostrils to
quiver. She loved the smell of danger.

It was no easy matter to keep the conversational bark on an even keel;
the rocks were thick on every hand. Business, politics, and local
affairs were all for obvious reasons tabooed. More than once they were
near an upset, as when they began to talk of Indians.

Ambrose had related the anecdote of Tom Beavertail who, upon seeing a
steamboat for the first time, had made a paddle-wheel for his canoe,
and forced his sons to turn him about the lake.

"Exactly like them!" said John Gaviller with his air of amused scorn.
"Ingenious in perfectly useless ways! Featherheaded as schoolboys!"

"But I like schoolboys!" Ambrose protested. "It isn't so long since I
was one myself."

"Schoolboys is too good a word," said Gaviller. "Say, apes."

"I have a kind of fellow-feeling for them," said Ambrose smiling.

"How long have you been in the north?"

"Two years."

"I've been dealing with them thirty years," said Gaviller with an air
of finality.

Ambrose refused to be silenced. Looking around the luxurious room he
felt inclined to remark, that Gaviller had made a pretty good thing out
of the despised race, but he checked himself.

"Sometimes I think we never give them a show," he said with a
deprecating air, "We're always trying to cut them to our own pattern
instead of taking them as they are. They are like schoolboys, as you
say.

"Most of the trouble with them comes from the fact that anybody can
lead them into mischief, just like boys. If we think of what we were
like ourselves before we put on long trousers it helps to understand
them."

Gaviller raised his eyebrows a little at hearing the law laid down by
twenty-five years old.

"Ah!" he said quizzically. "In my day the use of the rod was thought
necessary to make boys into men!"

Ambrose grew a little warm. "Certainly!" he said. "But it depends on
the spirit with which it is applied. How can we do anything with them
if we treat them like dirt?"

"You are quite successful in