attlesnake! See,
there is a little store. We can lay in some provisions for the trip
and it will be loads of fun. It will remind you of your old days in
the North."

The girl took his arm, and the two turned abruptly away, leaving Orcutt
standing in his tracks watching their departure with somewhat of a grin.

As they came out of the store with bulging pack sacks, they saw him
step into the stuffy coach, and a moment later they watched the wheezy
little engine puff importantly down the track. Then, side by side they
stepped onto the tote-road and were swallowed up between the two walls
of towering balsams and spruces.

A mile farther on, a Eureka truck passed them, and the girl, scorning
the driver's offer of a lift, brushed its dust from her clothing as
though it were the touch of some loathsome thing.

That night they camped on a little hardwood knoll beside a stream, well
back from the road. Old John seemed to have regained his usual
spirits, and to her utter astonishment the girl surprised a grin upon
his face as he put up the shelter. He built a fire, and producing hook
and line from his pocket, jerked half a dozen trout from the water,
which were soon sizzling in the pan from which rose the odor of frying
bacon.

"Do you know, Dad," began the girl, after the dishes had been washed
and the man had thrown an armful of green bracken upon the fire to
smudge away the mosquitoes. "Do you know I think you are simply
wonderful?" She was leaning against his knee, and her eyes looked into
his.

"Tush, girl, what ails ye?" said the man, removing his pipe to send a
cloud of blue smoke to mingle with the gray of the smudge.

"I mean it, Daddy, dear. You are just wonderful. Oh, I know how
disappointed you are. I know just how it hurts to have a man like
Orcutt get the best of you. I saw it in your face."

"Did Orcutt see it, d'ye think?"

"Of course he did--and he just gloated."

"U-m-m," said McNabb, and his lips twitched at the corners.

"And on top of all that you can smile!"

"Yup, isn't it funny? I can even grin."

"But, Dad, will it--ruin you? Not that I care a bit, about the money.
We can be just as happy, maybe happier, without it. I'm not the little
fool you think I am. I have always spent a lot of money because I had
it to spend, but if we didn't have it, I could be just as happy making
what little I did have go as far as it could. Maybe we'll have to come
up here and live in a cabin.