hat
astonished to see a very pretty wooden house grow into shape. He
glanced at Stirling.

"Yes," said the latter, with a suggestion of grim amusement, "that's
the camp."

Once more Weston understood him, and, as their eyes met, man and
master smiled. Both of them knew there were hosts of strenuous,
hard-handed men growing wheat and raising cattle in that country who
would have looked on that camp as a veritable mansion. They were,
however, men who had virgin soil to break or stupendous forests to
grapple with, tasks of which many would reap the benefit, and they
very seldom troubled much about their personal comfort.

After a while, Weston, lowering the headsail, dropped the anchor over
close to the beach, and Major Kinnaird paddled a canoe off gingerly.
He was, as usual, immaculately neat, and Weston noticed the contrast
between him and Stirling, whose garments had apparently grown smaller
with the wetting. The latter pitched his valise into the canoe without
waiting for Weston to see to it, and then stood up endeavoring to
squeeze some of the water from his jacket.

"It's the only one I've got," he said to Kinnaird. "Anyway, I guess
the thing will dry, and I've had a sail that has made me feel young
again."

Then they went ashore, and Weston, who was very wet, was left
shivering in the wind to straighten up the gear, until a bush rancher,
who had been engaged to wait on the party until he arrived, paddled
off for him. The rancher had prepared a satisfactory supper; and some
time after it was over, Stirling and Mrs. Kinnaird sat together on the
veranda. There was, at the time, nobody in the house. The breeze had
fallen lighter, though a long ripple still lapped noisily upon the
beach, and a half-moon had just sailed up above the clustering pines.
Their ragged tops rose against the sky black as ebony, but the pale
radiance they cut off from the beach stretched in a track of faint
silvery brightness far athwart the lake.

Mrs. Kinnaird, however, was not watching the ripple flash beneath the
moon, for her eyes were fixed on two dusky figures that moved through
the shadow toward the water's edge. By and by there was a rattle of
shingle, and presently the black shape of a canoe slid down into the
moonlight. It rose and dipped with the languid ripple, and the two
figures in it were silhouetted against the silvery gleam. One was a
man in a wide hat who knelt and dipped the flashing paddle astern, and
the other a gir