Wallie agreed that it was an idea, but he was privately of the opinion that there would be a limit to the pleasure which the company of chipmunks, however accomplished, could afford him.
"If only I had a congenial neighbour," he sighed, "it would make a great difference."
"There's Canby—you might call on him," Pinkey suggested, grinning. "Or if you ketch yourself pickin' at the bed-clothes you can saddle up and scamper over and see me. 'Tain't fur—forty miles across the mounting. Jest below that notch—you can't miss it."
Wallie had looked at the notch often since then. He was staring at it the evening Canby rode down on him—staring and thinking so hard of Helene Spenceley that Canby had checked his horse and was looking at him before he saw him.
It would be impossible to say which was the more astonished.
Instead of the fearsome person Canby had anticipated, he saw one so different and at the same time so extraordinary that he could not immediately collect himself.
Wallie's trunks had followed him, together with a supply of provisions, and now, his day's work done, he was sitting in front of his tent on a patent camp-chair garbed in whatsoever had come handiest.
Canby's eyes rested upon a mild-looking young man in a purple silk lounging robe, hob-nailed mountain boots, and a yachting cap with a black patent-leather visor. He was smoking a cigarette with a gold tip and a monogram, held in a hand that was white and carefully manicured.
In his surprise, Canby said: "Good evening," almost amiably.
Wallie, in turn, saw a visitor who looked as if he might just have returned from a canter through Central Park. His appearance was so homelike and familiar that Wallie went forward with a radiant smile of welcome. Before he knew it Canby found himself shaking hands vigorously with the person he had come to quarrel with.