n the range all night."

Lisle made no comment, but went on dexterously with his work, while
Nasmyth watched him with half-amused admiration.

"You're handy at that and at everything else you do," Nasmyth remarked at
length. "In fact, you easily beat Jake, though he's a professional packer
and, so to speak, to the manner born."

"So am I," said Lisle.

It was growing dark, but the coppery glow of the fire fell upon his face,
emphasizing the strong coloring of his weather-darkened skin. On the
whole, it was a prepossessing face, clearly cut--indeed, it was a trifle
thin--with a hint of quiet determination in the clear gray eyes and firm
mouth. He looked capable of resolute action and, when it was needed, of
Spartan self-denial. There was no suggestion of anything sensual, or even
of much regard for bodily comfort.

"If you don't mind my being a little personal, I'd better own that I
suspected the fact you mention, and it puzzled me," Nasmyth replied. "You
see, when I first met you at the Empress Hotel, in Victoria, you were
dressed and talked like the usual prosperous business man. Trafford, who
introduced us, said that you had a good deal of money in some of the
Yukon mines."

"Trafford was quite right. The point is that I took a part in locating
two of the claims. Before that I followed a good many rough occupations,
mostly in the bush. My prosperity's recent."

Nasmyth still looked curious, and Lisle smiled.

"I can guess your thoughts--I don't speak altogether like a bushman?
Well, my father was an Englishman, and my mother a lady of education from
Montreal; that was why, at the cost of some self-denial on their part, I
was sent East to school."

It was an incomplete explanation. He had inherited the Englishman's
reticence, which forbade him to point out that his father sprang from an
old family of standing and had, for some reason which his son had never
learned, quarreled bitterly with his English relatives. Coming to Canada,
he had married and taken up the bush life on a small and unremunerative
ranch, where he had died and left his widow and his son badly provided
for.

"Thank you," responded Nasmyth; and Lisle supposed it was in recognition
of the fact that he would hardly have furnished even those few
particulars to one whom he regarded as a stranger. "To reciprocate, a few
words will make clear all there is to know about me. English public
school, Oxford afterward--didn't take a degree. Spend most