He vanished among the boulders, and, filling my pipe again, I kept still, feeling no great inclination to take part in the casual chatter of people with whose customs I had almost lost touch. I was struck by the resemblance of the names the child mentioned to those of Haldane's daughters, but both were tolerably common, and it did not please me that Mrs. Leyland should make a story of my struggles for the amusement of strangers. So some time had passed before I entered the veranda of the little wooden house, and, as it was only partially lighted by a shaded lamp, managed to find a place almost unobserved in a corner. Thus I had time to recover from my surprise at the sight of Beatrice and Lucille Haldane seated at a little table beneath the lamp. Two men I did not know leaned against the balustrade close at hand, and several more were partly distinguishable in the shadows. From where I sat some of the figures were projected blackly against a field of azure and silver, for the moon now hung above the lake. Beatrice Haldane was examining what appeared to be a bound collection of photographic reproductions.
"Yes. As Mrs. Leyland mentions, I have met the original of this picture, and it is a good one, though it owes something to the retoucher," she said; and I saw my hostess smile wickedly at her husband when somebody said: "Tell us about him. How interesting!"
Beatrice Haldane answered lightly: "There is not much to tell. The allegorical title explains itself, if it refers to the edict that it is by the sweat of his brow man shall earn his bread, which most of our acquaintances seem to have evaded. The West is a hard, bare country, and its inhabitants, though not wholly uncivilized, hard men. I should like to send some of our amateur athletes to march or work with them. This one is merely a characteristic specimen."
I wondered what the subject of the picture was, but waited an opportunity to approach the speaker, while, as I did so, a young man said: "I should rather like to take up your sister's challenge. Pulling the big catboat across here inside an hour without an air of wind was not exactly play; but can you tell us anything more about these tireless Westerners, Miss Lucille?"
The younger girl, who sat quietly, with her hands in her lap, looked up. "It is the fashion never to grow enthusiastic; but I am going to tell you, Ted. Those men were always in real earnest, and that is why they interested me; but I shouldn't take up the challenge if I were you. We call this camping. They lie down to sleep on many a journey in a snow trench under the arctic frost, ride as carelessly through blinding blizzard as summer heat, and, I concluded, generally work all day and half the night. They are not hard in any other sense, but very generous, though they sometimes speak, as they live, very plainly."
Some of the listeners appeared amused, others half-inclined to applaud the girl, and there was a little laughter when Miss Haldane interposed: "This is my sister's hobby. Some of them, you may remember, seem to live upon gophers, Lucille."
Lucille Haldane did not appear pleased at this interruption; but the flush of animation and luster in her eyes wonderfully became her. "I do not know that even gophers would be worse than the canned goose livers and other disgusting things we import for their weight in silver," she said. "All I saw in the West pleased me, and, because I am a Canadian first and last, I don't mind being smiled at for admitting that I am very glad I have seen the men who live there at their work. They are doing a great deal for our country."
"They could not have a stancher or prettier champion, my dear," said a gray-haired man who sat near me. "It would be hard to grow equally enthusiastic about your profession, Ted."
"It is Miss Haldane's genius which makes the most of everybody's good points," answered a young man with a frank face and stalwart appearance, turning towards me. "I am afraid the rest of us would see only a tired and dusty farmer who looked as though twelve hours' sleep would be good for him. What's your idea of the West? If I remember Mrs. Leyland correctly, you come from the land of promise, don't you?"
"We certainly work tolerably hard out there, but it is no great credit to us when we have to choose between that and starvation; and the West is the land of disappointment as well as promise," I answered dryly.