not setting a time limit, and it was perfectly natural that
anybody should like company through the wilderness. Why, it would be a
wild, adventurous journey! the very sort of which he had dreamed
before he had tasted the prosaic routine of the lumber-camp. He had
his colors and brushes, the birch-bark which served so many forest
purposes should be his canvas, they had food, and Pierre, at least,
his gun and ammunition--no lad could have protested further.

"All right. It will be a lark after my own heart. We can quit as soon
as we're tired of it; and--look here. Mr. Dutton said you were paid to
take me to the nearest town. How far is that? How long to get there?"

"Oh! I don't know. Donovan's nighest. Might go in four days--might a
week. Canada's closer, but you don't want to go north. South, he
said."

"Ye-es. I suppose so. Fact is, I don't care where I go nor when. I'm
in no hurry. As long as the money and food hold out, I'm satisfied."

"Speakin' of money. I couldn't afford to waste my time."

Adrian laughed at this sudden change of front. It was Pierre who had
proposed the long road, but at the mention of money had remembered
prudence.

"That's all right, too. It was of that I was thinking, you greedy
fellow. What do guides get, here in the woods?"

Pierre stepped ashore, carefully beached his canoe, and as carefully
considered his reply before he made it. How much did this city lad
know? Either at camp or on the island had he heard the just rates of
such service?

"Well--how much you got?"

"I'm asking a question, not you."

"About four dollars, likely."

"Whew! not much. You can get the best of them for two. I'll give you a
dollar a day when we're resting and one-fifty when we're traveling."

Adrian was smiling in the darkness at his own sudden thrift. He had
taken a leaf out of his comrade's own book, and beyond that, he almost
loved his precious earnings, so soon as the thought came of parting
with them. He instantly resolved to put aside a ten dollar piece to
take the "mater," whenever he should see her. The rest he would use,
of course, but not waste. He would paint such pictures up here as
would make his old artist friends and the critics open their eyes. The
very novelty of the material which should embody them would "take."
Already, in imagination, he saw dozens of fascinating "bits" hung on
the line at the old Academy, and felt the marvelous sums they brought
swelling his pockets to bursting