"I can't stand that," said Marjorie. "It touches my pride. I've stood a good deal. Mr. Mackenzie!... Mr.... Mackenzie." The voice at the men's fire stopped and a black head turned around. "What is it, Mrs. Trafford?" asked Mackenzie. She held up four fingers. "Four!" she said. "Eh?" "Three sons and a daughter," said Marjorie. Mackenzie did not take it in until his younger brother had repeated her words. "And you've come from them to _this_.... Sir, what _have_ you come for?" "We want to be here," shouted Trafford to their listening pause. Their silence was incredulous. "We wanted to be alone together. There was too much--over there--too much everything." Mackenzie, in silhouette against the fire, shook his head, entirely dissatisfied. He could not understand how there could be too much of anything. It was beyond a trapper's philosophy. "Come back with us sir," said Noyes. "You'll weary of it...." Noyes clung to the idea of dissuasion to the end. "I don't care to leave ye," he said, and made a sort of byword of it that served when there was nothing else to say. He made it almost his last words. He turned back for another handclasp as the others under their light returning packs were filing down the hill. "I don't care to leave ye," he said. "Good luck!" said Trafford. "You'll need it," said Noyes, and looked at Marjorie very gravely and intently before he turned about and marched off after his fellows.... Both Marjorie and Trafford felt a queer emotion, a sense of loss and desertion, a swelling in the throat, as that file of men receded over the rocky slopes, went down into a dip, reappeared presently small and remote cresting another spur, going on towards the little wood that hid the head of the rapids. They halted for a moment on the edge of the wood and looked back, then turned again one by one and melted stride by stride into the trees. Noyes was the last to go. He stood, in an attitude that spoke as plainly as words, "I don't care to leave ye." Something white waved and flickered; he had whipped out the letters they had given him for England, and he was waving them. Then, as if by an effort, he set himself to follow the others, and the two still watchers on the height above saw him no more. CHAPTER THE FOURTH LONELY HUT § 1 Marjorie and Trafford walked slowly back to the hut. "There is much to do before the weather breaks," he said, ending a thoughtful silence. "Then we can sit inside there and talk about the things we need to talk about." He added awkwardly: "Since we started, there has been so much to hold the attention. I remember a mood--an immense despair. I feel it's still somewhere at the back of things, waiting to be dealt with. It's our essential fact. But meanwhile we've been busy, looking at fresh things." He paused. "Now it will be different perhaps...."