“Why the delay, though?” she reverted to the point.  “I thought you were all ready to go.”

“I am,” Charlie enlightened.  “But while I was at the store just now, Paul Abbey ’phoned from Vancouver to know if there was an up-lake boat in.  His people are big lumber guns here, and it will accommodate him and won’t hurt me to wait a couple of hours and drop him off at their camp.  I’ve got more or less business dealings with them, and it doesn’t hurt to be neighborly.  He’d have to hire a gas-boat otherwise.  Besides, Paul’s a pretty good head.”

This, of course, being strictly her brother’s business, Stella forbore comment.  She was weary of travel, tired with the tension of eternally being shunted across distances, anxious to experience once more that sense of restful finality which comes with a journey’s end.  But, in a measure her movements were no longer dependent upon her own volition.

They walked slowly along the broad roadway which bordered the lake until they came to a branchy maple, and here they seated themselves on the grassy turf in the shadow of the tree.

“Tell me about yourself,” she said.  “How do you like it here, and how are you getting on?  Your letters home were always chiefly remarkable for their brevity.”

“There isn’t a great lot to tell,” Benton responded.  “I’m just beginning to get on my feet.  A raw, untried youngster has a lot to learn and unlearn when he hits this tall timber.  I’ve been out here five years, and I’m just beginning to realize what I’m equal to and what I’m not.  I’m crawling over a hump now that would have been a lot easier if the governor hadn’t come to grief the way he did.  He was going to put in some money this fall.  But I think I’ll make it, anyway, though it will keep me digging and figuring.  I have a contract for delivery of a million feet in September and another contract that I could take if I could see my way clear to finance the thing.  I could clean up thirty thousand dollars net in two years if I had more cash to work on.  As it is, I have to go slow, or I’d go broke.  I’m holding two limits by the skin of my teeth.  But I’ve got one good one practically for an annual pittance.  If I make delivery on my contract according to schedule it’s plain sailing.  That about sizes up my prospects, Sis.”

“You speak a language I don’t understand,” she smiled.  “What does a million feet mean?  And what’s a limit?”

“A limit is one square mile—­six hundred and forty acres more or less—­of merchantable timber land,” he explained.  “We speak of timber as scaling so many board feet.  A board foot is one inch thick by twelve inches square.  Sound fir timber is worth around seven dollars per thousand board feet in the log, got out of the woods, and boomed in the water ready to tow to the mills.  The first limit I got—­from the government—­will scale around ten million feet.  The other two are nearly as good.  But I got them from timber speculators, and it’s costing me pretty high.  They’re a good spec if I can hang on to them, though.”