in, and both of them watched him as he drew
a little nearer. So many times every minute his left arm swept out
into the sunlight as he flung it forward with far-stretched palm. It
fell with the faintest splash, and there was a little puff of spray as
his head dipped and the water washed across his lips. Then the white
limbs flashed amidst the green shining of the river, and the long,
lithe form contracted, gleaming as a salmon gleams when it breaks the
surface with the straining line. The still river rippled, and a
sun-bronzed face shot half-clear again. Miss Kinnaird watched the
swimmer's progress with open appreciation.

"Dancing," she said didactically, "isn't to be compared with that!
It's the essence of rhythmic movement! I must certainly study
swimming. I wish he'd come right on."

Ida was not sure that she agreed with her; and, just then, Weston,
swinging suddenly around, went down into the green depths, and,
shooting up with white shoulders high above the water, swept away
again down-stream. Miss Kinnaird rose as he did so, and turned back
toward the camp.

"That packer is rather fine, considered as a muscular animal," she
said.

Ida smiled at this, somewhat sardonically.

"In your country you wouldn't think of regarding him as anything else.
Doesn't being an artist emancipate one from the conventional point of
view?"

"No," replied Miss Kinnaird reflectively, "it doesn't, that is, when
you do not paint for your living--which, of course, alters
everything."

Then her eyes twinkled as she favored her companion with a passable
imitation of her father's didactic tone and manner.

"As the major says, social distinctions are necessary safeguards, and
cannot lightly be disregarded. If they were not, they could not have
existed as long as they have."

She laughed.

"In the case of a man who has inherited his station and his
possessions," she added, "it is a very natural and comfortable creed."

"Ah," said Ida, "my father worked in a sawmill."

She spoke quietly, but there was something in her voice that warned
her companion that there were subjects upon which they might have a
clash of opinion. In the east there is pride of possession; but the
pride of achievement, which is, perhaps, more logical, is more common
in the west.

It was an hour later when Weston laid breakfast before them; and Ida,
who regarded him unobtrusively with careful attention, decided that
Arabella Kinnaird was right. The packer