The words did not cost him as great an effort as they would have a
moment or two earlier. He felt that in the meanwhile something had
snapped and the tension had suddenly slackened. This was a vast relief
to him, and he had recovered a good deal of his composure when the
girl spoke again.

"Still," she said, "you evidently have no great liking for the
market-place."

"I'm afraid I haven't," admitted Weston, with a little laugh. "After
all, when one has seen how some of these mining syndicates and
mortgage companies get in their work, a certain prejudice against such
things isn't quite unnatural."

"Ah," said Ida, who had now decided that the conversation must be kept
within safe limits, "you don't, however, mind using the shovel."

Weston was quite ready to follow the lead she had given him.

"What are we to do when we come out here?" he asked, with an air of
whimsical reflection. "Half of us have no professions, and we haven't
a trade. They bring us up to take life easily, and then, when some
accident pitches us out into the Colonies, it's rather a shock to
discover that nobody seems to have any use for us. As a matter of
fact, I don't blame your sawmill bosses, your railroad men and your
ranchers, considering that it takes several years to learn how to chop
a tree, and that to keep pace with an average construction gang is a
liberal education."

Ida laughed. The further they got away from the crisis now the better
she would be pleased.

"I fancy there's still a notion in the old country that the
well-brought-up young Englishman excels at anything he cares to
undertake, even if it's only manual labor," she said.

"Oh, yes," laughed Weston, "I've heard it. Let them keep such notions
over yonder if it pleases them. One naturally likes to think we're as
good as the rest, and perhaps we're warranted, but it seems to me that
the man of equal muscle raised to swing the ax and shovel is going to
beat the one who's new to it every time."

"But the pride of caste!" said Ida. "Doesn't that count? Doesn't
success even at such things as track-laying or chopping trees depend
on moral _as_ well as physical strength?"

"I think with most of us courage is largely a matter of experience,"
said Weston. "We learn to know what can't hurt us and to avoid the
things that can. As to the other kind, the man who hazards his life
and limbs in half-propped wild-cat adits, or running logs down the
rapids, is hardly likely to be less