“Well,” he said, “it has been arranged that I’m to act as guide, and Miss Gladwyne says they’ll wait for me. As that’s the case, I don’t see why I shouldn’t start as soon as Carsley gets through. I shouldn’t wonder if he brings a letter from Nasmyth. It will be a tough journey, and I’ll have to break a new trail. Are you coming, or will you head for Vancouver to join Bella?”
“We’ll stick together,” replied the lad. “Bella’s to stay over here some months, and if she decides to join Miss Gladwyne she’ll leave Glacier long before I could reach the place.”
Lisle rose and shook out his pipe.
“Then,” he responded, “I’ll take a look around, and you had better start off the first thing to-morrow and hurry those castings on. There’s a good deal to be done if we’re to get away when Carsley turns up.”
CHAPTER XXV
A RELIABLE MAN
The sun had just dipped behind a black ridge of hills, and the lake lay still, mirroring the tall cedars on its farther shore. A faint chill was creeping into the mountain air, which was scented with resinous smoke, and somewhere across the water a loon was calling. A cluster of tents stood upon the shingle, and in front of the largest Millicent reclined in a camp-chair. Near her Miss Hume sat industriously embroidering; and Nasmyth lay upon the stones. Bella occupied another camp-chair, a young man with a pleasant brown face sitting at her feet; and farther along the beach a group of packers in blue shirts and duck trousers lay smoking about a fire. By and by one rose and when he began to hack at a drift-log the sharp thudding of his ax startled the loon which departed with a peal of shrieking laughter.
The party had reached the fringe of the wilderness after a long stage journey from the railroad through a rugged country. They had met with no mishaps beyond a delay in the transport of some of their baggage, and everything had been made comparatively easy for them; but they knew that henceforward there might be a difference. Man must depend largely upon his own natural resources in the wilds, where, after furnishing the traveler with the best equipment and packers to carry it, the power of wealth is strictly limited. A recognition of the fact hovered more or less darkly in all their minds, but Millicent was the first to hint at it.