them on an equal footing—­why, they’ll go to hell and back again for him.  They’re as loyal as soldiers to the flag.  They’re a mighty self-sufficient, independent lot, these lumberjacks, and that goes for most everybody knocking about in this country,—­loggers, prospectors, miners, settlers, and all.  If you’re what they term ‘all right,’ you can do anything, and they’ll back you up.  If you go to putting on airs and trying to assert yourself as a superior being, they’ll go out of their way to hand you packages of trouble.”

“I see,” she observed thoughtfully.  “One’s compelled by circumstances to practice democracy.”

“Something like that,” he responded carelessly and went on eating his supper.

“Don’t you think we could make this place a lot more homelike, Charlie?” she ventured, when they were back in their own quarters.  “I suppose it suits a man who only uses it as a place to sleep, but it’s bare as a barn.”

“It takes money to make a place cosy,” Benton returned.  “And I haven’t had it to spend on knickknacks.”

“Fiddlesticks!” she laughed.  “A comfortable chair or two and curtains and pictures aren’t knickknacks, as you call them.  The cost wouldn’t amount to anything.”

Benton stuffed the bowl of a pipe and lighted it before he essayed reply.

“Look here, Stella,” he said earnestly.  “This joint probably strikes you as about the limit, seeing that you’ve been used to pretty soft surroundings and getting pretty nearly anything you wanted whenever you expressed a wish for it.  Things that you’ve grown into the way of considering necessities are luxuries.  And they’re out of the question for us at present.  I got a pretty hard seasoning the first two years I was in this country, and when I set up this camp it was merely a place to live.  I never thought anything about it as being comfortable or otherwise until you elected to come.  I’m not in a position to go in for trimmings.  Rough as this camp is, it will have to go as it stands this summer.  I’m up against it for ready money.  I’ve got none due until I make delivery of those logs in September, and I have to have that million feet in the water in order to make delivery.  Every one of these men but the cook and the donkey engineer are working for me with their wages deferred until then.  There are certain expenses that must be met with cash—­and I’ve got all my funds figured down to nickels.  If I get by on this contract, I’ll have a few hundred to squander on house things.  Until then, it’s the simple life for us.  You can camp for three or four months, can’t you, without finding it completely unbearable?”

“Why, of course,” she protested.  “I wasn’t complaining about the way things are.  I merely voiced the idea that it would be nice to fix up a little cosier, make these rooms look a little homelike.  I didn’t know you were practically compelled to live like this as a matter of economy.”