“I suppose that was it,” said Evelyn thoughtfully.
Her companion’s eyes twinkled. “Then, if ye’re to live among us happily, ye’ll have to try. In the way ye use the words, some of the leading men in this country were no brought up at all.”
“Do you imagine that I’m going to live here?”
Mrs. Nairn gathered up one or two articles she had brought into the room with her and moved towards the door, but before she reached it she looked back at the girl.
“It occurred to me that the thing was no altogether impossible,” she said.
An hour afterwards, Evelyn went down into the town with her, and in one of the streets they came upon Jessie leaving a store. The latter was not lacking in assurance and she moved forward to meet them, but Evelyn gazed at her with a total disregard of her presence and walked quietly on. There was neither anger nor disdain in her attitude; to have shown either would have been a concession she could not make. The instincts of generations of gently-reared Englishwomen were aroused, as well as the revulsion of an untainted nature from something unclean.
Jessie’s cheeks turned crimson and a malevolent light flashed into her eyes as she crossed the street. Mrs. Nairn noticed her expression and smiled at her companion.
“I’m thinking it’s as weel ye met Jessie after she had got the boat for Carroll,” she said.
The remark was no doubt justified, but the fact that Jessie had been able to offer valuable assistance failed to soften Evelyn towards her. It was merely another offence.
In the meanwhile the tug had steamed northwards, towing the sloop which would be required, and, after landing the rescue party at the inlet, steamed away again. Before she had disappeared Carroll began his march, and his companions long remembered it. Two of them were accustomed to packing surveyors’ stores through the seldom-trodden bush, and the others had worked in logging camps and chopped new roads; but though they did not spare themselves, they lacked their leader’s stimulus. Carroll, with all his love of ease, could rise to meet an emergency, and he wore out his companions before the journey was half done. He scarcely let them sleep; he fed them on canned stuff to save delay in lighting fires, and he grew more feverishly impatient with every mile they made. He showed it chiefly by the tight set of his lips and the tension in his face, though now and then, when fallen branches or thickets barred the way, he fell upon the obstacles with the axe in silent fury. For the rest, he took the lead and kept it, and the others, following with shoulders aching from the pack straps, and laboured breath, suppressed their protests.