"Why, Phyl," he cried, as he came up. "You waiting for me here, like this? I might have been hours late."
The girl smiled happily as she closed her book.
"Certainly you might. But"—with a simple sincerity—"it would have made no difference. I have waited longer than this for you—before. And often enough sitting on a hard, well-polished old log."
For once Frank detected that which underlaid her words. He remembered that time in Toronto when she had ventured alone from her home to find him. He remembered that she had said she would always be waiting for him, and his boyish heart went out more tenderly to her than ever.
But what he said conveyed nothing of this.
"But this sun," he cried. "It—it is scorching."
The girl only smiled and shook her head.
"You can pay off your teamster, and leave your baggage here. Guess you'd best get up beside me, and I'll drive you in."
In a moment the man's mind came back to all that this visit entailed. The sight of this girl had put it out of his head.
"Yes," he said, "I'll get up beside you, but——" Then he turned to his teamster. "Put the horses in the barn," he said, "and book me a room. You'll see to yourself, and wait for me here."