d at length, "we'll count you full time to-day, but
there's the four days off when you got crushed by that redwood, and
the week when you chopped your leg. Then, counting the amount for your
board, that's thirty-six dollars I'm due to you."

"Not quite," answered Nasmyth. "There was the day or two after I fell
through the ice and had the shivers. I'd sooner you knocked off the
few dollars."

The logger was said to be a hard man, and in some respects this was
certainly the case; but a faint flush crept into his grim face.
Perhaps he had noticed the weariness in Nasmyth's voice or the
hollowness of his cheeks.

"All right," he said awkwardly. "Jake will put you up grub for four
days, and we'll call it square."

He counted out the money, which Nasmyth slipped into the receptacle
inside his belt. When the logger moved away the weary man crossed over
to his bunk. Nasmyth had brought his few possessions up in a canoe,
and now, knowing that he could not take them all away, he turned them
over with a curious smile. There were one or two ragged pairs of duck
trousers stained with soil, a few old tattered shirts, and a jacket of
much the same description. He remembered that he had once been
fastidious about his tailoring, as he wondered when he would be able
to replace the things that he left behind. Then he rolled up some of
the garments and his two blankets into a pack that could be strapped
upon his shoulders, and, as he did this, his comrades came trooping
in, stamping to shake the snow off their leggings.

There were about a dozen of them--simple, strenuous, brown-faced
Bush-ranchers for the most part--and they ate in haste, voraciously,
when the abundant but rudely served supper was laid out. Nasmyth had
not much appetite, and the greasy salt pork, grindstone bread,
desiccated apples, flavoured molasses, and flapjacks hot from the pan,
did not tempt him. He preferred to watch his companions, and now and
then his glance was a trifle wistful. He had worked and eaten with
them; they had slept about him, and he knew he had their rude
good-will. When his strength had begun to give way, some of them had
saddled themselves with more than their share of the tasks they were
engaged in, and he knew that it was possible he might not fall in with
comrades of their kind again. Now that the time had come, he, who had
once been welcomed at brilliant London functions, felt that it would
cost him an effort to part with these rough com