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ds a dam?" Nasmyth frowned, though she saw a little glow kindle in his eyes. "I'm by no means sure that I possess any of those desirable qualities. Besides, there's a rather serious objection--that of finance." Then Laura Waynefleet made it clear that she had considered the question, and she favoured the man with a glimpse of the practical side of her character. "The stores give long credit, and partial payments are generally made as a work of that kind goes on. Then it is not a very unusual thing for workmen to wait for their wages until the contract is carried through." Nasmyth lay still for at least another minute. He had gradually lost his ambition during the few years he had wandered through the Bush of British Columbia. The aimless life was often hard, but it had its compensations, and he had learned to value its freedom from responsibility and care. When he did not like a task he had undertaken, he simply left it and went on again. Still, he had had misgivings now and then when he noticed how far some of his comrades had drifted. Presently he rose slowly to his feet. "Well," he said, "you're right, I think, and, if I'm given an opportunity, I'll undertake the thing. The credit will be yours if I'm successful." The girl rose. "Then," she admonished, with a faint smile, "don't tell me that you have failed." She turned away and left him somewhat abruptly, but Nasmyth did not resume his fishing, though he could hear the big trout splashing in the pool as the sunset light faded off the water. He lay down among the wineberries, which were scattered among the glossy leaves like little drops of blood, to think harder than he had thought for a considerable time. An hour ago, as he had told Laura Waynefleet, he would have been well content to stay on at the ranch, and, though she had roused him, he knew that it would cost him an effort to leave it. He was not, he fancied, in love with her. Indeed, he now and then admitted that she would probably look for more from the man who won her favour than there was in him, but the camaraderie--he could think of no better word for it--that had existed between them had been very pleasant to him. He realized that he was in one sense hers to dispose of. She had, in all probability, saved his life, and now she was endeavouring to arouse his moral responsibility. She was sending him out to play a man's part in the battle of life. He admitted that he had shrunk from it,
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