"They're a little larger than the average," her companion explained, "Still, that's the kind of thing you run up against when you buy land to start a ranch or clear the ground for a mine. Chopping, sawing up, splitting those giants doesn't fill one with languorous dreams; the only dreams that our axmen indulge in materialize. It's an unending, bracing struggle. There are leagues and leagues of trees, shrouding the valleys in a shadow that has lasted since the world was young; but you see the dawn of a wonderful future breaking in as the long ranks go down."
Once more, without clearly intending it, he had stirred the girl. He had not spoken in that rather fanciful style to impress her; she knew that, trusting in her comprehension, he had merely given his ideas free rein. But in doing so he had somehow made her hear the trumpet-call to action which, for such men, rings through the roar of the river and the song of the tall black pines.
"Ah!" she murmured, "it must be a glorious life, in many ways; but it's bound to have its drawbacks. Doesn't the flesh shrink from them?"
"The flesh?" He laughed. "In this land the flesh takes second place—except, perhaps, in the cities." He turned and looked at her curiously. "Why should you talk of shrinking? The bush couldn't daunt you; you have courage."
The girl's eyes sparkled, but not at the compliment. His words rang with freedom; the freedom of the heights, where heroic effort was the rule, in place of luxury. She longed now, as she had often done, to escape from bondage; to break away.
"Ah, well," she said, smiling half wistfully; "perhaps it's fortunate that such courage as I have may never be put to the test."
Though reticence was difficult, Vane made no comment. He had already spoken unguardedly, and he decided that caution would be desirable. As he started the team, an automobile came up, and he looked around as he drove on.
"It's curious that I never heard the thing," he remarked.
"I didn't, either," replied Evelyn. "I was too much engrossed in the trees. But I think Miss Horsfield was in it"
"Was she?" responded Vane in a very casual manner; and Evelyn, for no reason that she was willing to recognize, was pleased.