nd you Buck, my dear, stop looking around like a fool and get
busy! Meanwhile, we'll pack up the grub-box."

Garth and Natalie smiled at each other. There was nothing very alarming
about this.

"Will you have a pipe of baccy now, Tom Lillywhite?" the same voice
resumed. "Thanks, old man, don't mind if I do! Is there any cut? No?
Well shave it close."

There was a pause here, while the speaker presumably filled his pipe.
Then some one drew an audible sigh of content; and a kind of dialogue
took place--though there was but the one voice full of quaint lifts and
falls. Garth and Natalie, smiling broadly, listened without shame.

"Ah! a fine day, a bellyful of bacon, and a pipeful of tobacco!--would
you change with a moneyed man, Tom Lillywhite?"

"Well I don't know, sir! Mebbe he don't enjoy his grub as much as us,
havin' gen'ally the dyspepsy; but how about the winter, old sport, when
we don't fetch up no stoppin'-house; and has to make a bed in the snow,
hey? It's then a flannel bed-gown looks good to old bones; let alone
woolly slippers and a feather bed! Seems I wouldn't kick agin the
job of takin' care o' money in the winter time!"

"Ah! g'long with you, Tom Lillywhite! You'd a been dead long ago if you
had money! Swole up and bust with good eatin', y'old epicoor! You'd be
havin' a pig killed fresh every week if you had money!"

"Say, b'lieve I would cut some dash if I had money! I'd build me a house
of lumber clear through, and I'd paint it all over, paint it blue! And
I'd have sawdust on the settin'-room floor and a brass spittoon in every
corner! 'Have a chair,' I'd say to stoppers, not lettin' on I was puffed
up at all. 'Have a ten-cent seegar. Don't mention it! Don't mention it!
I get a case full in every Fall!'"

Here there was a jolly chuckle.

Their packhorses joining them noisily, the dialogue was cut short.

"Some one comin'," said the voice.

Rounding the clump of bushes, Garth and Natalie found themselves in a
grassy opening in the bush. An untraced wagon stood in the centre; and
two horses browsed. Immediately under the bushes, an old man sat on the
ground. They instinctively looked around for the other persons brought
into his conversation; but, save for the horses, he was alone.

At the sight of them his face lighted up with the pleased naivete of
a child. "How do! How do!" he said immediately, without getting up or
raising his voice at all. "My horses are quiet. They won't tech yours.
The