It was not until the next day that Trenholme fully understood how helpless the poor Scotchman really was in his present circumstances.  In the early morning there was the live-stock to attend to, which took him the more time because he was not in strong health; and when that was done it seemed that there was much ado in the house before the old woman would sit down peacefully for the day.  He apologised to Trenholme for his housework by explaining that she was restless and uneasy all day unless the place was somewhat as she had been accustomed to see it; he drudged to appease her, and when at last he could follow to the bush, whither he had sent Trenholme, it transpired that he dared not leave her more than an hour or two alone, for fear she should do herself a mischief with the fire.  In the bush it was obvious how pitifully small was the amount of work accomplished.  Many trees had been felled before Cameron’s death; but they still had to be lopped and squared, cut into twelve-foot lengths, dragged by an ox to the log-slide, and passed down on to the ice of the lake.  Part of the work required two labourers; only a small part of what could be done single-handed had been accomplished; and Trenholme strongly suspected that moonlight nights had been given to this, while the old woman slept.

It is well known that no line can be drawn between labour and play; it is quite as much fun making an ox pull a log down a woodland path as playing at polo, if one will only admit it, especially when novelty acts as playmate.  Most healthy men find this fascination hidden in labour, provided it only be undertaken at their own bidding, although few have the grace to find it when necessity compels to the task.  Alec Trenholme found the new form of labour to which he had bidden himself toilsome and delightful; like a true son of Adam, he was more conscious of his toil than of his delight—­still both were there; there was physical inspiration in the light of the snow, the keen still air, and the sweet smell of the lumber.  So he grew more expert, and the days went past, hardly distinguished from one another, so entire was the unconsciousness of the slumber between them.

He had not come without some sensation of romance in his knight-errantry.  Bates was the centre, the kernel as it were, of a wild story that was not yet explained.  Turrif had disbelieved the details Saul had given of Bates’s cruelty to Cameron’s daughter, and Trenholme had accepted Turrif’s judgment; but in the popular judgment, if Cameron’s rising was not a sufficient proof of Bates’s guilt, the undoubted disappearance of the daughter was.  Whatever had been his fault, rough justice and superstitious fear had imposed on Bates a term of solitary confinement and penal servitude which so far he had accepted without explanation or complaint.  He still expressed no satisfaction at Trenholme’s arrival that would have been a comment on his own hard case and a confession of his need.  Yet, on the whole, Trenholme’s interest in him would have been heightened rather than decreased by a nearer view of his monotonous life and his dry reserve, had it not been that the man was to the last degree contentious and difficult to deal with.