"It's curious that one gets out of the way of writing home in the West, and it's often difficult to give one's friends a clear idea of how one lives. Things are different———"
Mrs. Featherstone smiled, and Foster saw that his wish to make excuses for his comrade's negligence was understood. Featherstone, however, was franker than he expected.
"There were good reasons for Lawrence's not writing home and they made it awkward for us to write to him for a time. You can now tell us what he has done in Canada. We want to know."
Foster began with some hesitation by relating how he had first met his comrade in the churned-up mud outside a logging camp after a dispute with the bullying manager. The men were beaten, but Lawrence and two or three more from the river-gang would not give in, and started in the rain, without blankets and with very little food, which a sympathetic cook stole for them, on a long march to the nearest settlement. There they took a contract for clearing land, and Foster described how they lived in a rude bark shack while they felled the trees and piled them up for burning. It was strenuous work, and having been unable to collect their wages from the lumber firm, the clothes they could not replace went to pieces and they slept, for the most part, in the wet rags they wore by day. But they held out until the work was done and paid for. Foster tried to do his comrade justice and thought he had not exaggerated, for Lawrence's philosophic good humor had encouraged the rest and smoothed over difficulties that threatened to break up the gang.
Then he stopped and glanced at the others, wondering whether he had said too much and had drawn a picture they shrank from contemplating. Alice's eyes were steadily fixed on him. Mrs. Featherstone looked grave, but there was a hint of proud satisfaction in her husband's face. Somewhat to his surprise, Foster saw that he had not jarred or bored them.
"You made good; I believe that's the proper phrase," said Featherstone.
"Go on, please."
Foster did so. His adventures had not appeared remarkable when they happened, and he did not think himself much of a story-teller, but he meant to do his best, for his partner's sake. It would be something if he could show Lawrence's people the courage and cheerfulness with which he had faced his troubles. Still, he thought it better to vary the theme, and related how they engaged themselves as salesmen at a department store, where Lawrence rashly undertook to serve the drugs and prescribed for confiding customers until a mistake that might have had disastrous consequences led to his being fired. Foster went with him, and they next undertook to cook, without any useful knowledge of the art, for a railroad construction gang. Their incompetence became obvious when Lawrence attempted to save labor by putting a week's supply of desiccated apples to soak at once, with the consequence that the floor of the caboose was covered with swollen fruit that had forced itself out of the pot. One of the gang, who went in to steal some fried pork, declared that the blamed apples chased him down the steps.
Featherstone's chuckle was encouraging, but Foster glanced at Alice and thought he read another emotion than amusement in her sparkling eyes. It was now nearly dark, but the glow of the fire touched the others' faces and nobody seemed to think of ringing for lights.
He went on to describe their retreat in winter from a worthless mineral claim, where they had remained until the snow surprised them when their food was nearly gone. Eight or nine miles a day was the most they could drag their hand-sledge through the tangled bush, and Foster got his foot frozen through sleeping in wet boots. The frozen part galled into a wound, but with provisions running out they could not stop to rest. The tent and half their blankets had to be thrown away and Lawrence hauled him on the sledge over rocks and fallen logs, with the temperature at forty degrees below, until they reached a frozen river, down which he struggled against a savage wind.
Then came a profitable contract, which Lawrence obtained against keen opposition, for supplying telephone posts, and Foster was surprised to find that the description of their efforts to get the logs out of a rugged wilderness made a stirring tale. Although he paused once or twice apologetically, the others made him resume, and he began to wish he was not in the firelight when he saw that Alice was quietly studying him. It was his partner's story he meant to tell, but since they were together he could not leave himself out.