"Oh!" laughed the girl, "are you so anxious to go back to civilization?"
Stane's face suddenly clouded, and the old hardness came back to it.
"There is no going back for me—yet," he answered bitterly.
"But you will return, some day," she answered quietly. "I have no doubt of that at all. But I was not thinking of that when I spoke, I was wondering whether you were tired of this primitive life. For my part I quite enjoy it. It is really exhilarating to know that one has to depend upon one's self, and to find unexpected qualities revealing themselves at the call of circumstances. I think I shall never be the same again, my old life seems contemptibly poor and tame when I look back upon it."
"I can understand that," he answered, turning from his bitterness. "The wilderness gets into one's blood."
"Particularly if it is a little wild to start with," she replied cheerfully, "as I really believe mine is."
"There are men who have lived up here for years, enduring hunger and every kind of hardship, hazarding life almost daily, who having stumbled suddenly upon a fortune, have hurried southward to enjoy their luck. They have been away a year, two years, and then have drifted back to the bleak life and hazard of the North."
"It is not difficult to believe that," answered Helen. "The life itself is the attraction up here."
Stane permitted himself to smile at her enthusiasm and then spoke. "But if you had to live it day by day, year in and year out, Miss Yardely, then——"
"Oh then," she interrupted lightly, "it might be different. But——" She broke off suddenly and a sparkle of interest came in her eyes. Pointing to the pile of wood in the corner she cried: "Mr. Stane, I am sure there is something hidden under that wood."