It was some moments before the girl replied, and the man waited expectantly.  He was studying the far-off gaze of the pretty hazel eyes, and wondering at the thought moving behind them.  At length Nancy withdrew her gaze from the forest.

“I shall certainly report the things I’ve seen,” she said with a smile that found prompt response in the man’s dark eyes.  “You’ve certainly done your best to show me, and tell me, the exact position.  I shall make a point of reporting all that.  Yes, I’ve seen it all, thank you very much.”

Then her smile suddenly vanished.  The shrewd gaze of commercial interest replaced it.

“But these Labrador folk?” she demanded.  “Is that stuff just—­hearsay?”

The man shook his head.  He was feeling easier.

“It’s God’s truth, mam.”  He spat out a stream of tobacco juice.  “I know them forests.  Say,” his eyes had lost their smile, “I don’t guess I figger to know the business side of things, I don’t calculate to know if the folks on Labrador work with, or against the Skandinavia.  But I do know that if they’re up against us they’ve got us plumb beat before we start.  They got the sort of lumber the jacks dream about when they got their bellies full on a Saturday night, and they’re going to wake up to find it Sunday mornin’.  I’m just a lumberman, and if I hadn’t fifteen years’ record with the Skandinavia, and wasn’t pouching two hundred and fifty bucks, and what I can make besides, a month, why, it ’ud be me for the coast where you can jamb the rivers in a three months’ cut, and souse rye the rest of the year till the bugs look as big as mountains.  Guess it’s the summer rose garden of the lumber-jack, for all it’s under snow eight months in the year, when you can’t tell your guts from an iceflow, and the skitters, in summer, mostly reach the size of a gasoline tank.  It’s a dog’s life, mam, lumberin’ anywhere.  But they’re lap-dogs out that way.”

The man’s words brought the return of the girl’s smile.  “Yes, I spose it’s—­tough,” she observed thoughtfully.  Then quite suddenly she spread out her hands.  “Oh, yes,” she exclaimed, with a sudden vehemence, “it’s worse than tough.  It’s hopeless.  Utterly hopeless.  I’ve seen it.  I’ve watched it.  I had to.  I couldn’t escape it.  It’s so desperately patent.  But it’s not the life as these folk live it.  It’s the future I’m thinking of.  It’s middle life and old age.  These boys.  They’re wonders—­now.  How long does it last, and then—­what happens?  I’m here on business, hard business.  But I guess this thing’s got hold of me so I can’t sometimes sleep at nights.  Tell me about them.”

Arden Laval, one of the hardest specimens of the lumber boss, turned away.  His understanding of women was built up out of intimacy with the poor creatures who peopled the camps he knew.  This girl’s burst of feeling only stirred him to a cynical humour.