“Harry,” he said presently, “you have got most of the things you wanted so far?”

“Yes,” said Alton quietly.  “It wasn’t always easy, and they didn’t come to me, but I knew what I wanted, and I usually got it.”

Seaforth made a sign of comprehension.  “Did it ever occur to you that you had probably as much already as is good for you?”

Alton glanced at him with half-closed eyes.  “A little plainer, Charley.”

“You have Somasco, the liking of all the ranchers down the valley, the timber rights and mill.  You have also Carnaby, and most folks would think you a fortunate man.  Now the man who wants too much is occasionally sorry when he gets it.”

Alton’s eyes glinted.  “I have a partner, too, who doesn’t know where to stop,” he said.

Seaforth met his comrade’s gaze steadily.  “This,” he said reflectively, “is a good country.  In fact I don’t know a better one for the man who wants to live as he was meant to in the wind and sun, watching what he has worked for slowly grow.  Is it a little thing, Harry, to see the oats and timothy where the forest had been, to clear a new way for the river with giant powder, and hear the big wheels humming where there was only a frothing rapid?  Orchards, barns, and homestead built by your own labour, horses and herds of cattle all your own, and by and by the railroad coming through to bring you the long dreamed of prosperity.  It’s alluring, Harry?”

The glint was a trifle plainer in Alton’s eyes, and his lean fingers were closed together.  “I don’t quite see where that trail leads to,” he said quietly.

Seaforth laughed a little.  “It is good to rise when the sun is creeping above the firs and plunge down into an ice-cold pool.  Better still to lie on the verandah, tired in body, tranquil in mind, when the snows are fading and your work is done, knowing that every redwood hewn and new plough-furrow driven has been so much added to the prosperity of this province and the Dominion.  It isn’t a bad life—­this one you were meant for, Harry.”

“No,” said Alton slowly.  “There are times when I’m a very thankful man.”

“Well, there is another one, and I have seen very tired men playing at being amused by the trifles that sickened them.  They had, however, kept up the game so long that the manhood they were once proud of was only a memory.  There are a good many of them in the old country, and some of them have sacrificed all they had for the one thing that wasn’t good for them.  It was too late when they found it out, Harry.”

Alton’s face was grim.  “It would,” he said, “be a pity if you and I fell out, Charley.”

Seaforth laughed in a curious fashion.  “It would, but I scarcely think we shall.  You and I are partners, and a little more, and I will keep silent now I have spoken.”

Alton said nothing, but sat smoking and staring at the fire, until Seaforth rolled himself in his damp blankets and sank into not altogether refreshing sleep.  A misty light was creeping into the tent when he was awakened by the thudding of his companion’s axe, and rising stiffly with the ache at the hip-joint which every bushman knows, went out shivering.