"Keener than you thought? Well, not long since I'd have admitted I was something of a fool. Anyhow, I rather think you know the Canadian cities."
"At Toronto I stopped at a cheap boarding-house. They rang bells for you. If you were not in right on time for meals, you went without. You didn't ask for the menu; you took what the waitress brought. Now you ought to be satisfied. I'm not curious about your job in the Old Country."
"I'm not at all reserved," Jimmy rejoined. "I occupied a desk at a cotton mill office, and wrote up lists of goods in a big book, until I couldn't stand for it. Then I quit."
Margaret weighed his statement and imagined he had used some reserve. For a clerk at a cotton mill to tour about Canada with rich people was strange.
"You talk about the Old Country, although you stated you were altogether Canadian," Jimmy resumed.
"My father's a Scot. He came from the Border."
"Your name indicates it. The Jardines and two or three other clans ruled the Western Border, but were themselves a stubborn, unruly lot. Your ancestors were famous. I know their haunts in Annandale."
"I reckon my father was a poacher," Margaret observed.
Jimmy laughed. "It's possible the others were something like that. Anyhow, their main occupation was to drive off English cattle, but we won't bother—"
He stopped and mused. Sometimes, when he was at the cotton mill, he had gone for a holiday to the bleak Scottish moors. The country was romantic, but rather bleak than beautiful, and he had thought a touch of the old Mosstroopers' spirit marked their descendants. The men were big and their Scottish soberness hid a vein of reckless humor. They were keen sportsmen and bold poachers. When one studied them, one noted their stubbornness and something Jimmy thought was quiet pride. Margaret had got the puzzling quality; one marked her calm level glance and her rather haughty carriage. Although she was a bush rancher's daughter, Jimmy did not think he exaggerated much.