Nasmyth glanced at his scarred fingers and broken nails.
“I’ve been up against it, as they say here, since those days,” he replied.
“And it has done you a world of good!”
Nasmyth laughed. “Well,” he said, “perhaps it has. Any way, that’s not a point we need worry over just now. Where have you sprung from?”
Wisbech told him, and added that there were many things he would like to talk about, whereupon Nasmyth smiled in a deprecatory manner.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait an hour or two,” he said. “You see, there are several more big logs ready for hauling down, and I have to keep the boys supplied. I’ll be at liberty after supper, and you can’t get back to-night. In the meanwhile you might like to walk along to where we’re getting the logs out.”
Wisbech went with him and Gordon, and was impressed when he saw how they and the oxen handled the giant trunks. He, however, kept his thoughts to himself, and, quietly smoking, sat on a redwood log, a little, unobtrusive, grey-clad figure, until Gordon, who had disappeared during the last hour, announced that supper was ready. 134 Then Wisbech followed Nasmyth and Gordon to their quarters, which they had fashioned out of canvas, a few sheets of corrugated iron, and strips of bark, for, as their work was on the hillside, they lived apart from the regular railroad gang. The little hut was rudely comfortable, and the meal Gordon set out was creditably cooked. Wisbech liked the resinous scent of the wood smoke that hung about the spot, and the faint aromatic odour of the pine-twig beds and roofing-bark. When the meal was over, they sat a while beneath the hanging-lamp, smoking and discussing general topics, until Nasmyth indicated the canvas walls of the hut and the beds of spruce twigs with a wave of his hand.
“You will excuse your quarters. They’re rather primitive,” he said.
Wisbech’s eyes twinkled. “I almost think I shall feel as much at home as I did when you last entertained me at your club, and I’m not sure that I don’t like your new friends best,” he said. “The others were a trifle patronizing, though, perhaps, they didn’t mean to be. In fact, it was rather a plucky thing you did that day.”
A faint flush crept into Nasmyth’s bronzed face, but Wisbech smiled reassuringly as he glanced about the hut.