“Well, come along, we will ride a bit along the trail. The nuts are coming on fine, eh? Going to be a great crop. We’ll have a day at ’em in a couple of weeks. A touch o’ frost and they will be fit, eh? I haven’t had a good long day in the woods for weeks. We’ll take this upper trail. Haven’t been to the top this whole summer. The colouring of the valley ought to be worth seeing, eh?” And so the Colonel chatted, giving the boy no chance to make answer. The doings and goings of the family, the ranch operations, plans for the autumn hunting, these all were fully discoursed upon till they reached a bare shoulder overlooking the wide sweeping valley. Already the mountain sides were aflame with the hues of autumn, variegated with the dark green of the massed pines. A truly noble view unfolded itself before them where the valley with its confluents rolled north and south, east and west. “My! I wish Daddy were here,” sighed Paul. “He never paints at all now.” “Ah, not at all?” “Never. He just sits and sits, looking dreadful, except when I play sometimes, then he tells me how to—to—make it sing, you know, sing like some one singing. That’s the way he plays. But sometimes he won’t have me play at all. Just hates it. And I don’t know what to do.” “What about the fences and stables? Is he not going to get them in shape?” “He began to, but he gets tired awful quick, and he hasn’t got lumber and things. And I heard him tell Sleeman he couldn’t get any money. A man in Vancouver wouldn’t give him, not a dollar, he said. And he can’t buy anything he wants. And Sleeman just laughs and says he’s a fool.” The boy paused, holding back his wrath, then recovering himself went on quietly. “Of course, Sleeman is a bad man, a very bad man, and I wish he would not come and stay so late. Of course, Daddy is lonesome sometimes, I guess.” “Lonesome? Why doesn’t he drop over and see us now and then?” “He says the neighbours have all forgotten him. But I went with him to the Post and a lot of people remembered him. Jim—Mr. Powers, I mean, and Mr. Macdonald, and Mr. Tom Smith and Jake Smith and Mr. Perrault and old Murphy, Mr. Murphy, I mean, and a lot more men, they all remembered him. But he thinks they have forgotten him. Of course they don’t come and sit and talk as they used to when—before—I mean when Mother was here too. Everything is different now, and Daddy just sits and—and—Uncle Colonel, when Sleeman comes—” Paul always forgot his manners in mentioning Sleeman—“when Sleeman comes they just play cards and play and play, and they make such a noise, and Sleeman keeps filling up Daddy’s glass. Old Jinny sometimes comes in and just takes the bottle right away. And I wish she would every night, because next day Daddy has always a bad headache. Oh, I wish Sleeman wouldn’t come.” The Colonel’s face grew grave and stern. “How often is Sleeman there?” he asked.