nk of it again until somebody makes me."

"That's a way of yours. You think too late."

"I'm afraid I sometimes do so," Charnock admitted. "Anyhow, to-day, I'm
not going to think at all."

Sadie noted the reckless humor with which he began to talk, but she led
him on, and they engaged in cheerful banter until Long Lake began to
gleam among the woods ahead. Charnock skirted the trees and pulled up
where a number of picketed teams and rigs stood near the water's edge.
Farther along, a merry party was gathering wood to build a fire, and
Charnock did not find Sadie alone again for some hours after he helped
her down.

In summer, Long Lake has no great beauty and shrinks, leaving a
white saline crust on its wide margin of sun-baked mud, but it is a
picturesque stretch of water when the snow melts in spring and the
reflections of the birches quiver on the smooth belt along its windward
edge. Farther out, the shadows of flying clouds chase each other across
the flashing surface. Two or three leaky canoes generally lie among the
trees, and in the afternoon Charnock dragged one down, and helping Sadie
on board, paddled up the lake.

As they crept round a point flocks of ducks left the water and the air
throbbed with a beat of wings that gradually died away. The fire, round
which the others sat, was out of sight, and the rustle of the tossing
birches emphasized the quietness. Charnock let the canoe drift, and
Sadie looked up at him from her low seat among the wagon robes he had
brought.

"What are you going to do about your farm?" she asked.

"I don't know yet, and don't see why I should bore you with my
troubles."

"Pshaw!" said Sadie. "You want to put the thing off; but you know you
can't."

Charnock made a gesture of humorous resignation. "Very well! I expect I
won't be able to carry on the farm."

"No," said Sadie, thoughtfully, "I don't think you could. There are men
who would be able, but not you."

"I dare say you're right, but you're not flattering," Charnock rejoined
with a smile.

Sadie gave him a steady look. "Your trouble is you laugh when you ought
to set your lips and get busy. One has got to hustle in Canada."

"I have hustled. In fact, it's hustling that has brought me low. If I
hadn't spent my money trying to break fresh land, I wouldn't have been
so deep in debt."

"And you'd have had more time to loaf about the settlement?"

"On the whole, I don't think that's kind. If I hadn't come to the