wn on the scene below. "We on our farm, or you here? I've never had
more than five hours' sleep through the harvest? But now things are
slacker."

He threw his head back with a laugh.

"Why, this seems to me like playing at lumbering! It's all so tiny--so
babyish. Oh, yes, there's plenty of work--for the moment. But it'll be
all done, in one more season; not a stick left. England can't grow a real
forest."

"Compared to America?"

"Well, I was thinking of Canada. Do you know Canada?"

"A little." Then she added hastily: "But I never saw any lumbering."

"What a pity! It's a gorgeous life. Oh, not for women. These women
here--awfully nice girls, and awfully clever too--couldn't make anything
of it in Canada. I had a couple of square miles of forest to look
after--magnificent stuff!--Douglas fir most of it--and two pulping mills,
and about two hundred men--a rough lot."

"But you're not Canadian?"

"Oh, Lord, no! My people live in Maine. I was at Yale. I got trained
at the forest school there, and after a bit went over the Canadian
frontier with my brother to work a big concession in Quebec. We did very
well--made a lot of money. Then came the war. My brother joined up with
the Canadian army. I stayed behind to try and settle up the business,
till the States went in, too. Then they set me and some other fellows to
raise a Forestry battalion--picked men. We went to France first, and last
winter I was sent here--to boss this little show! But I shan't stay here
long! It isn't good enough. Besides, I want to fight! They've promised me
a commission in our own army."

He looked at her with sparkling eyes, and her face involuntarily answered
the challenge of his; so much so that his look prolonged itself. She was
wonderfully pleasant to look upon, this friend of Mrs. Fergusson's. And
she was farming on her own? A jolly plucky thing to do! He decided that
he liked her; and his talk flowed on. He was frank about himself, and
full of self-confidence; but there was a winning human note in it, and
Rachel listened eagerly, talking readily, too, whenever there was an
opening. They climbed to the top of the hill where they stood on the
northern edge of the forest, looking across the basin and the busy throng
below. He pointed out to her a timber-slide to their right, and they
watched the trees rushing down it, dragged, as he now saw plainly, by the
wire cable which was worked by the engine in the hollow. A group of
German pri