Mackenzie did not take it in until his younger brother had repeated her words.
"And you've come from them to this.... Sir, what have you come for?"
"We want to be here," shouted Trafford to their listening pause. Their silence was incredulous.
"We wanted to be alone together. There was too much—over there—too much everything."
Mackenzie, in silhouette against the fire, shook his head, entirely dissatisfied. He could not understand how there could be too much of anything. It was beyond a trapper's philosophy.
"Come back with us sir," said Noyes. "You'll weary of it...."
Noyes clung to the idea of dissuasion to the end. "I don't care to leave ye," he said, and made a sort of byword of it that served when there was nothing else to say.
He made it almost his last words. He turned back for another handclasp as the others under their light returning packs were filing down the hill.
"I don't care to leave ye," he said.
"Good luck!" said Trafford.