Festing crossed the fall back-set, where the loam from the frost-split clods stuck to his boots, passed the sod stable, noting that one end was falling down, and was met on the veranda by Charnock’s dogs.  They sprang upon him with welcoming barks, and pushing through them, he entered the untidy living-room.  Charnock sat at a table strewn with papers that looked like bills, and there was a smear of ink on his chin.

“Hallo!” he said.  “Sit down and take a smoke while I get through with these.”

Festing pulled a chair into his favorite corner by the stove and looked about when he had lighted his pipe.  The room was comfortless and bare, with cracked, board walls, from which beads of resin exuded.  A moose head hung above a rack of expensive English guns, a piano stood in a corner, and lumps of the gumbo soil that lay about the floor had gathered among its legs.  Greasy supper plates occupied the end of the table, and the boards round the stove were blackened by the distillate that dripped from the joint where the pipe went through the ceiling.  These things were significant, particularly the last, since one need not burn green wood, which had caused the tarry stain, and the joint could have been made tight.

Then Festing glanced at Charnock.  The latter was a handsome man of about Festing’s age.  He had a high color and an easy smile, but he had, so to speak, degenerated since he came to Canada.  Festing remembered his keenness and careless good-humor when he began to farm, but disappointment had blunted the first, though his carelessness remained.  He had been fastidious, but one now got a hint of a coarse streak and there was something about his face that indicated dissipation.  Yet Festing admitted that he had charm.

“You don’t look happy,” he remarked.

“I don’t feel particularly happy,” Charnock replied.  “In fact, the reckoning I’ve just made looks very like a notice to quit.”  He threw Festing a paper and swept the others into a drawer.  “You might examine the calculations and see if they’re right.  I’m not fond of figures.”

“That was obvious long since.  However, if you’ll keep quiet for a few minutes——­”

Festing studied the paper, which contained a rough statement of Charnock’s affairs.  The balance was against him, but Festing thought it might be wiped off, or at least pulled down, by economy and well-directed effort.  The trouble was that Charnock disliked economy, and of late had declined to make a fight.  Festing doubted if he could be roused, but meant to try.

“I see an error of a hundred dollars, but that doesn’t make much difference.  Things look pretty bad, but I imagine they could be straightened out.”

“How long would it take you to put them straight?”

“Three years,” said Festing, when he had made a rough calculation.  “That is, if I got moderately good crops, but I’d cut out drinks, the pool game, and some other extravagances.  You want to keep away from the settlement.”