“I really am in earnest about entering the Forest Service. Landon filled me with enthusiasm about it. Never mind the pay. I’m not in immediate need of money; but I do need an interest in life.”
McFarlane stared at him with kindly perplexity. “I don’t know exactly what you can do, but I’ll work you in somehow. You ought to work under a man like Settle, one that could put you through a training in the rudiments of the game. I’ll see what can be done.”
“Thank you for that half promise,” said Wayland, and he went to his bed happier than at any moment since leaving home.
Berrie, on her part, did not analyze her feeling for Wayland, she only knew that he was as different from the men she knew as a hawk from a sage-hen, and that he appealed to her in a higher way than any other had done. His talk filled her with visions of great cities, and with thoughts of books, for though she was profoundly loyal to her mountain valley, she held other, more secret admirations. She was, in fact, compounded of two opposing tendencies. Her quiet little mother longing—in secret—for the placid, refined life of her native Kentucky town, had dowered her daughter with some part of her desire. She had always hated the slovenly, wasteful, and purposeless life of the cattle-rancher, and though she still patiently bore with her husband’s shortcomings, she covertly hoped that Berea might find some other and more civilized lover than Clifford Belden. She understood her daughter too well to attempt to dictate her action; she merely said to her, as they were alone for a few moments: “I don’t wonder your father is interested in Mr. Norcross, he’s very intelligent—and very considerate.”
“Too considerate,” said Berrie, shortly; “he makes other men seem like bears or pigs.”
Mrs. McFarlane said no more, but she knew that Cliff was, for the time, among the bears.