"The camp's here all the year, for anybody. 'Tis a sugar bush, don't you see. Nobody comes here only very late in the fall, to cut wood for the sugar boiling, and then again when the winter's breaking up. But for them two little times, a man might stay here the year round and nobody be a whit the wiser." Again Wardwell's instinct for news and for mystery was roused. He set himself to watch and to listen. "Our horse is tired," said Augusta, "and it's night now, so if you really don't mind we'll stay by the lake till tomorrow." "You may stay on in welcome, the whole year if it suits you. The truth of the whole is, I--" Evidently he was going to tell something of himself, but in that instant he caught Wardwell watching him and he stopped short. He hesitated, looking sharply at Wardwell, as though wondering whether he could trust him. "You may as well stay on," he said finally, with what seemed a sigh of tired, baffled resignation. "For I have to be moving on. The truth is, I--I'm _wanted_." The effect of the last two words on the listeners was peculiar. Wardwell, whose mind had been vaguely working toward some such thought as this announcement implied and who might have been expected to be somewhat prepared for it, started sharply and caught Augusta's arm. Augusta, on the other hand, who had not anticipated the man's announcement by the smallest suspicion and who might reasonably have been expected to be shocked, spoke interestedly and as though in answer to what the big man had admitted. And this is what she said. "Did you ever know what it is to go six long whole weeks on stuff that's just been half stewed on a stove that doesn't hold fire enough to really cook anything? We've been doing that until there's just one conglomerate taste in our mouths and we don't know whether we're eating fish or meat. And all because I haven't learned to cook with an open fire. I'm going to borrow your fire right now and beg you to teach me." The big blue eyes of the old Irishman beamed down upon her in wonder and appreciation. He was about to speak, but Augusta was too quick for him. She had taken her attitude--it was that they were going to consider those last two words of his as never having been spoken--and she was not to be moved from it. "I have bacon," she rattled on, "that the storekeeper said was as staple as old cheese. No, that was the soap," she remembered, laughing, "and new potatoes, and eggs that were laid this morning, if we want them, and--Come, I'll show you what we have, and we'll make a picnic feast." She turned away and led the big man towards the step of the wagon. "My name is Smith," the big man asserted with an effort as he followed her.