"My father
found it would not be advisable for him to settle in Montreal--for the
same reason that afterwards led us to leave Victoria--and we went
West. Perhaps he could have faced the trouble and lived it down, but I
could not leave him alone."

Gordon sat silent a moment or two. He knew, though she very rarely
mentioned it, how heavy was the burden that had been laid upon her,
and he was divided between a great pity for her and anger against her
father. Then he rose slowly to his feet.

"Miss Waynefleet," he said, "if I have said anything that hurt you,
I'm sorry, but there are times when I must talk. I feel I have to. In
the meanwhile I'll heave those logs up on a skid so that you can slip
the chain round them."

For the next half-hour he exerted himself savagely, and when at last
he dropped the handspike, his face was damp with perspiration. He
smiled grimly when Laura, who had hauled one or two of the logs away,
came back tapping the plodding oxen.

"Now," he said, "I'm going in to see your father. Custer happened to
tell me he was feeling low again, and it's going to afford me a good
deal of pleasure to prescribe for him."

He swung off his wide hat, and, when he turned away, Laura wondered
with a few misgivings what had brought the little snap into his eyes.
Three or four minutes later he entered the house, where Waynefleet lay
beside the stove with a cigar in his hand.

"I ran across Custer at the settlement, and I came along to see how
you were keeping," said Gordon.

Waynefleet held out a cigar-box. "Make yourself comfortable," he
answered hospitably. "We'll have dinner a little earlier than usual."

The sight of the label on the box came near rousing Gordon to an
outbreak of indignation. "I'm not going to stay," he declared. "It
seems to me Miss Waynefleet has about enough to do already."

He saw Waynefleet raise his eyebrows, and he added: "I guess it's not
worth while troubling to point out that it's not my affair. Now, if
you'll get ahead with your symptoms."

Waynefleet looked hard at him for a moment. The older man was not
accustomed to being addressed in that brusque fashion, and it jarred
upon him, but, as a matter of fact, he was not feeling well, and, as
he not infrequently pointed out, he had discovered that one had to put
up with many unpleasant things in that barbarous country. He described
his symptoms feelingly, and was rather indignant when Gordon expressed
neither astonishment no