Then he turned to Jim.
“If I were to talk until to-morrow I couldn’t quite tell you what I think of you.”
Jim only grinned, and, sitting down by the fire, set about preparing a meal, while Saunders, who appeared lost in reflection, presently turned again to Devine.
“I guess I’ll go down this afternoon,” he said. “We’ll have a fresh crowd pouring in, and they’ll want provisions. Anyway, I’ve headed off those company men, and if it’s necessary I can go through to the railroad and get hold of Weston by the wires.”
Devine admitted that this might be advisable, and Saunders, who was a man of action, took the back trail in the next half-hour. He had held his own in one phase of the conflict which it was evident must be fought before the Grenfell Consolidated could be floated, and it was necessary that somebody should go down to despatch the specimens to Weston.
They were duly delivered to the latter; and the day after he got them it happened that he sat with Ida on a balcony outside a room on the lower floor, at the rear of Stirling’s house. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon and very hot, but a striped awning was stretched above their heads, and a broad-leafed maple growing close below flung its cool shadow across them. Looking out beneath the roof of greenery they could see the wooded slope of the mountain cutting against a sky of cloudless blue, while the stir of the city came up to them faintly. Weston had already, at one time or another, spent several pleasant hours on that balcony. They had been speaking of nothing in particular, when at length Ida turned to him.
“Have you ever heard anything further from Scarthwaite?” she asked.
Weston fumbled in his pocket.
“I had a letter only a few days ago.”
He took it out and handed it to her, with a little smile which he could not help, though he rather blamed himself for indulging in it.