arrived at a like affectionate intimacy with Bartley. As they worked deep into the woods on their way to the camp, the road dwindled to a well-worn track between the stumps and bushes. The ground was rough, and they constantly plunged down the slopes of little hills, and climbed the sides of the little valleys, and from time to time they had to turn out for teams drawing logs to the mills in Equity, each with its equipage of four or five wild young fellows, who saluted Kinney with an ironical cheer or jovial taunt in passing. “They're all just so,” he explained, with pride, when the last party had passed. “They're gentlemen, every one of 'em,--perfect gentlemen.” They came at last to a wider clearing than any they had yet passed through, and here on a level of the hillside stretched the camp, a long, low structure of logs, with the roof broken at one point by a stovepipe, and the walls irregularly pierced by small windows; around it crouched and burrowed in the drift the sheds that served as stables and storehouses. The sun shone, and shone with dazzling brightness, upon the opening; the sound of distant shouts and the rhythmical stroke of axes came to it out of the forest; but the camp was deserted, and in the stillness Kinney's voice seemed strange and alien. “Walk in, walk in!” he said, hospitably. “I've got to look after my horse.” But Bartley remained at the door, blinking in the sunshine, and harking to the near silence that sang in his ears. A curious feeling possessed him; sickness of himself as of some one else; a longing, consciously helpless, to be something different; a sense of captivity to habits and thoughts and hopes that centred in himself, and served him alone. “Terribly peaceful around here,” said Kinney, coming back to him, and joining him in a survey of the landscape, with his hands on his hips, and a stem of timothy projecting from his lips. “Yes, terribly,” assented Bartley. “But it _aint_ a bad way for a man to live, as long as he's young; or haint got anybody that wants his company more than his room.--Be the place for you.” “On which ground?” Bartley asked, drily, without taking his eyes from a distant peak that showed through the notch in the forest. Kinney laughed in as unselfish enjoyment as if he had made the turn himself. “Well, that aint exactly what I meant to say: what I meant was that any man engaged in intellectual pursuits wants to come out and commune with nature, every little while.” “You call the Equity Free Press intellectual pursuits?” demanded Bartley, with scorn. “I suppose it is,” he added. “Well, here I am,--right on the commune. But nature's such a big thing, I think it takes two to commune with her.” “Well, a girl's a help,” assented Kinney. “I wasn't thinking of a girl, exactly,” said Bartley, with a little sadness. “I mean that, if you're not in first-rate spiritual condition, you're apt to get floored if you undertake to commune with nature.”