d he could not
fit her into the environment of that wild and rugged land. Indeed, he
remembered with a compassionate tenderness how she had shrunk from it
and clung to him--a forlorn, bedraggled object, in her tattered
dress--the day they floundered through the dripping Bush, and he
subconsciously braced himself for conflict as he thought of it. The
sooner his work was over, the sooner he could go back to her; but
there was, as he remembered, a great deal to be accomplished first.

Wrapped in thought as he was, he was surprised when he saw a faint
blue cloud of wood-smoke trailing out athwart the sombre firs in the
hollow beneath him. Then two figures became visible, moving upwards
along the strip of trail, and he drove the jaded horse forward as he
recognized them. He lost sight of them for a few minutes as he turned
aside to avoid a swampy spot, but when he had left it behind they were
close ahead in the middle of the trail, and it was with a thrill of
pleasure that he swung himself stiffly from the saddle.

With a smile on his bronzed face, Gordon stood looking at him. Gordon
was dressed in soil-stained garments of old blue duck, with a patch
cut from a cotton flour-bag on one of them. Laura Waynefleet stood a
little nearer, and there was also a welcome in her eyes. Nasmyth
noticed how curiously at home she seemed amidst that tremendous
colonnade of towering trunks. He shook hands with her, but it was
Gordon who spoke first.

"You have come back to us. We have been expecting you," he said.
"After all, store clothes and three well-laid meals a day are apt to
pall on one."

Nasmyth turned to Laura. "I should like to point out that this is the
man who urged me to go," he said. "One can't count on him."

"Oh, yes," admitted Gordon, "I certainly did urge you, but I guess I
knew what the result would be. It was the surest way of quieting you.
Anyway, you don't seem sorry to be back again?"

Nasmyth glanced at Laura.

"No," he said; "in some respects I'm very glad."

He became suddenly self-conscious as he saw Gordon's significant
smile. It suggested that he had, perhaps, made too great an admission,
and he wondered for the first time, with a certain uneasiness, whether
Gordon had mentioned Miss Hamilton to Laura, and, if that was the
case, what Miss Waynefleet thought about the subject.

Laura talked to him in her old friendly fashion as they walked on
towards the settlement, until Gordon broke in.

"I've call