elling me what your own
opinion is?"

Stephen O'Mara knew they were not going to get far if they followed
that lead. There was a challenge in Garry's voice which too closely
resembled a snarl.

"Why--no." The pre-occupied note was uppermost in his answer. "I'd
not mind at all."

But he offered no more than that.

"Nor the reason why you've been so insistent that I stay on up here?"

"Why not? I've not forgotten my manners, even though I've lived some
months in the back-brush!"

No attempt at levity, however, could parry the other's deliberate
insolence. Garry worked nearer to what had lain all day behind his bad
silence.

"A man is wasting his time trying to reform another man," he
vouchsafed, "if that other man has no desire for reformation."

"That is very, very true," Steve agreed with even gravity.

"Unless that man has the desire within himself, he need never waste his
time even hoping to come back!"

"I'm forced to admit that there is no room for argument in that,
either," said Steve. "Only it has to be more than a desire. It must
have become determination."

He hesitated, and the whimsical note crept in and dulled the threatened
edge of hardness in his voice.

"I know of a case in point, that happened right here in these woods.
One of the finest sportsmen who ever hunted or fished over this country
had a favorite guide--Long John LeClaire was his name. In fact, he
never went into camp without him, for upward of a score of years, and
he claimed there never was a better cook, between here and the border.
But Long John had one bad failing. As long as one kept to the timber
with him it was plain sailing, but strike a town and it meant a week's
delay in sobering that guide up. Town and a spree were synonymous in
Long John's mind; and after trying both mental and physical suasion the
sportsman I mentioned finally hit upon another plan. He persuaded Long
John to take the 'cure'; more than that, he put him on a train himself
and saw him off. But there was nothing enthusiastic about John's
departure. You see, way down deep in his heart, he was just a little
afraid this proposed treatment would be successful.

"He went, but his going was reluctant. And then, a month later he came
back again, and, oh, what a difference there was in his return! It
took the conductor and two train-men to put him off at the station;
they were considerably marked up in the operation. Once safely landed
on the p