she
should talk to him.

"There are lakes in British Columbia from which you can look straight up
at the never-melting snows," he went on. "You feel that you could sit
there for hours, without wanting to move or speak, though it must be
owned that one very seldom gets the opportunity."

"Why?" Millicent inquired.

"As a rule, the people who visit such places are kept too busy chopping
big trees, hauling canoes round rapids, or handling heavy rocks. Besides,
you have your food to cook and your clothes to mend and wash."

"Then, after the day's labor, a man must do his own domestic work?"

"Of course," answered Lisle. "Now and then one comes back to camp too wet
or played out to worry, and goes to sleep without getting supper. I'm
speaking of when you're working for your own hand. In a big logging or
construction camp you reach the fringe of cooperation. This man sticks to
the saw, the other to the ax, somebody else who gets his share of the
proceeds chops the cord-wood and does the cooking."

"And if you can neither chop nor saw nor cook?"

"Then," Lisle informed her dryly, "you have to pull out pretty quick."

"It sounds severe; that's cooperation in its grimmest aspect, though it's
quite logical--everybody must do his part. I'm afraid I shouldn't be
justified if we adopted it here."

"Cooperation implies a division of tasks," Lisle pointed out. "In a
country like this, they're many and varied. So long as you draw the wild
things as you do, you'll discharge your debt."

"Do you know that that's the kind of work the community generally pays
one very little for?"

"Then it shows its wrong-headedness," Lisle answered as he glanced
meaningly round the room. "But haven't you got part of your fee already?
Of course, that's impertinent."

"I believe we would shrink from saying it, but it's quite correct,"
Millicent replied. "Still, since you have mentioned the drawings, I'd
like your opinion about this ouzel."

She took up the sketch and explained the difficulty, as she had done to
Mrs. Gladwyne.

"It's right; don't alter it," advised Lisle. "It's your business to show
people the real thing as it actually is, so they can learn, not to alter
it to suit their untrained views."

He laughed and rose somewhat reluctantly.

"After that, I'd better get along. I have to thank you for allowing me to
come in."

She let him go with a friendly smile, and then sat down to think about
him. He was rather direct, but the