lbot's part for this weak,
impulsive, boyish character, so unlike his own, and on Stephen's side a
warm admiration for all Talbot's qualities that he could not and yet
wished to emulate. He, as others, was completely excluded from the elder
man's confidence, and knew nothing of his past or what was likely to be
his future; but then Stephen was one of those people always so deeply
absorbed in himself, his own aims and views, that he really never
noticed that his manifold confidences were never returned in the
smallest degree. He would come over to Talbot's cabin in the evening,
seat himself on the opposite side of the fire, and talk incessantly.
Talbot would allow him to do so until he felt too much bored, when he
would rise and quietly tell him to go. Stephen would hastily apologise
and retire, to return the following night quite unabashed, with more
views and aims to impart. In the first week of their acquaintance Talbot
had heard all about his home life--about the little English village, and
the red brick, ivy-covered school-house, where he had been master since
he was eighteen; of the village schoolmistress he had loved, because she
was so good, and had abandoned, presumably for the same reason; of his
doubts, fears, hopes, wishes, and intentions,--and after ten months he
knew no more of Talbot than he did the day of their first meeting.

The cabins of the men employed by both Stephen and Talbot were dotted
over the gulch, some higher and some lower than their own; while a
number of the men lived some distance off, a few of them even having
lodgings in the town.

When at last Talbot reached his cabin door this evening darkness had
completely fallen; there was no light from within to guide him, but
with his half-frozen fingers he managed to unlock the outer door, and he
and his tired beast went in together. The first thing he thought of when
he had closed the great door behind him and lighted up the passage, was
to unpack the animal and put him up in the stable which he had built
opposite his own cabin door; and it was fully an hour before, having
seen the beast comfortably installed, he turned into his own room and
struck a light. Here there was only one living thing to greet him, and
that was a shabby little black cat that leaped off the bed in the corner
and came purring to meet him. One morning he had found this cat lying on
his claim with a broken leg and carried it back to his cabin, where he
had set the leg an