post over. I told
Walters at the George to keep me the black mare. Instead, he let that
waterworks chief navvy fellow have her. The horse he gave me would
hardly face Scarside Rise."

One or two of the guests smiled, for the navvy in question was a
rather famous engineer who had had a difference of opinion with Weston
over certain gravel he desired to quarry on the Scarthwaite estate.
Then Mrs. Kinnaird stepped forward, and they went in to dinner.

It was not yet dark outside, but the table was lighted; and Ida, who
sat not far from Weston, watched him closely. She had at first been
startled by the likeness between him and the man she had met in
Canada, but she was now conscious of an increasing dissimilarity.
There was a suggestion of grossness in the face of Major Kinnaird's
guest, which had certainly not been a characteristic of Weston the
packer. The older man's expression was petulant and arrogant; that of
the one who had served her as camp attendant had been, as a rule,
good-humoredly whimsical. Nor did she like the half-contemptuous
inattention that Weston displayed when one or two of the others
addressed him. In several cases he merely looked up and went on with
his dinner as though it were too much trouble to answer. Ida felt
reasonably sure that his manners would not have been tolerated in most
of the primitive logging camps of western Canada. It became evident,
however, that there were topics in which he took some interest, when a
man who sat near turned to him.

"We were in the meadows by Ghyllfoot this afternoon, and they were
looking very sour and rushy," he said. "They were drained once,
weren't they?"

"They were," replied Weston, sharply. "It's stiff land. In my father's
time, Little used to grow good wheat there. Still, even tile drains
won't last forever. The soil gets in."

"You're correct about the wheat," said another man. "Little's nephew
still talks about it. They used to grind it at the Ramside mills.
Wouldn't it be worth while to have the meadows redrained, if only for
the grass?"

Ida, who was watching him, fancied that this was a sore point with
Weston, for he momentarily forgot his dinner.

"No," he answered curtly. "I took some trouble to make young Little
understand it when he came to me with a nonsensical proposition not
long ago. Like the rest of them, he's always wanting something. I
asked him where he thought the money was coming from."

Ida was not surprised at this, thoug