Waynefleet made no objections. There was, as a matter of fact, a great deal to be done, and Nasmyth went back to his new quarters over the stable almost too weary to hold himself upright that night. He, however, gathered strength rapidly, and a few days later he was chopping a great tree, standing on a narrow plank notched into the trunk of it several feet from the ground as he swung the axe, when the man who had instructed Miss Waynefleet how to nurse him came up the trail. Gordon sat down on a log close by, and looked at Nasmyth.
“I was coming round to make sure I was quite through with your case, but it’s tolerably evident you have no more use for me,” he said. “Stopping here?”
Nasmyth said he was, and Gordon nodded.
“Well,” he said, “in several ways I’m rather glad. It’s going to make things easier for Miss Waynefleet. Guess you understand what I meant when I said she ran the ranch?”
Nasmyth said he thought he did, and then, with a certain diffidence, he changed the subject.
“You must have spent a good deal of time looking after men––professionally,” he said.
Gordon laughed in a somewhat curious fashion. “We’ll let that go. In one sense, I’ve dropped my profession. I had to, and it’s scarcely likely that I shall take it up again.”
“I wonder,” said Nasmyth reflectively, “if it’s admissible for me to mention that I had fancied something of the kind. You see, in the Bush, I have naturally come across a good many men who have turned their backs upon the cities.”
Gordon made a little gesture. “It’s a sure thing you’ll hear a good deal about me at the settlement, where, though the boys don’t cast it up to me, I’m credited with having killed somebody back East, and as I’ve had an idea that I could hit it rather well with you, I’d sooner tell you the thing myself. Well, I was making my mark in a big city, several years ago, when I lost my head. When success comes too quickly, it’s a thing you’re rather apt to do. The trouble is that you have usually to face the results of it.”