Then the younger man turned to me: "Do you happen to know anything about seamanship?"
"I spent all my spare time as a youngster helping to sail small craft on the English coast, and was considered a fair helmsman for my age," I said; and Caryl patted my shoulder approvingly.
"It's a mercy, because I know just next to nothing. Put up as a yacht club member, and bought this craft—she's a daisy—for five hundred dollars to give the girls a sail. Brought them down, with a light fair wind, smart enough, but though it's gone round, the thing don't steer the way she ought to in a breeze. So I've been getting mighty anxious as to how I'm to take them home again, and feel too scared to say so."
I looked at the craft, which was a half-decked boat, evidently fitted with a center-board, of the broad-beamed shallow type common on the American coast. She carried no bowsprit, her lofty mast was stepped almost in her bows, and the combination of heavy spars, short body, and wide, flat stern, presaged difficulties for an unskilled helmsman when running before any strength of breeze. "I think you have some reason for your misgivings," I said. "If the wind freshens much I should almost recommend you to camp here all night."
We had by this time approached the fire, and I noticed, with a slight inward hesitation, that Haldane's daughter and an elderly lady were busy preparing tea. Perhaps it was this which prevented Beatrice from noticing me, but Lucille came forward and greeted us. "You have arrived at an opportune moment. Supper is just about ready, and if it is not so good as the one you gave us at Gaspard's Trail, we will try to do our best for you," she said.
"Have you not forgotten that evening yet?" I asked. A transitory expression I did not quite comprehend became visible in the girl's face when she answered my smile. It was pleasant to think she recalled the evening of which I had not forgotten the smallest incident.
"It was something so new to me, and you were all so kind," she said.
There was dismay when Caryl announced my opinion, though the rest decided to postpone a decision in the hope that the weather might improve, and it seemed useless to inform them that the reverse appeared more probable. A pine forest rolled down to the water's edge, and when the meal had been dispatched I lounged with my back against a tree, when Leyland came up. "You look uncommonly lazy—more played out than I. We want you to enjoy your stay with us, and I hope I have not tired you," he said.
I laughed a little, because Leyland was hardly likely to tire any man fresh from the arduous life of the prairie. "It's an oasis in the desert, and you have made me so comfortable that I shall almost shrink from going back," I said, truthfully enough; for, before I left, the strain at Gaspard's Trail had grown acute.
"Then what do you want to go back for, anyway?" asked Leyland, who during the afternoon had made several pertinent inquiries concerning my affairs. "There are chances for a live man in the cities—in fact I know of one or two. No doubt for a time it's experience, but it strikes me that this cattle roasting and losing of grain crops must mean a big loss of opportunities as well as grow monotonous."