"They're rather bigger than the average," her companion resumed. "Still, that's the kind of thing you run up against when you buy land to make a ranch of or clear the ground for a mine. Chopping, sawing up, splitting those giants doesn't fill one with languorous dreams; the only ones our axe-men indulge in materialise. It's a bracing struggle. There are leagues and leagues of trees, shrouding the valleys in a shadow that has lasted since the world was young; but you see the dawn of a wonderful future breaking in as the long ranks go down." Once more, without clearly intending it, he had stirred the girl. He had not spoken in that rather fanciful style to impress her; she thought he had, trusting in her comprehension, merely given his ideas free rein. But in doing so he had somehow made her hear the clear trumpet-call to action, which, for such men, rings through the roar of the river and the song of the tall black pines. "Ah!" she said, "I dare say it's a fine life in many ways, but it must have its drawbacks. The flesh must shrink from them." "The flesh?" he said and laughed. "In this land it takes second place--except, perhaps, in the cities." Then he turned and looked at her curiously. "Why should you talk of shrinking? The bush couldn't daunt you; you have courage." The girl's eyes sparkled, but it was not at the compliment. His words rang with freedom, the freedom of the heights, where heroic effort was the rule in place of luxury. She longed now, as she had often done, to escape from bondage, to break away. "Ah, well," she said, half-wistfully, "I expect it's fortunate that such courage as I have may never be put to the test." Though reticence was difficult, Vane made no comment. He had spoken unguardedly already, and he had decided that caution was desirable. As it happened, an automobile came up when he restarted his team, and he looked round as he drove on again. "It's curious that I never heard the thing," he said. "I didn't either," said Evelyn, and added, as if any explanation were needed: "I was too engrossed in the trees. But I think Miss Horsfield was in it." "Was she?" said Vane in a very casual manner, and Evelyn, for no reason that she was willing to admit, was pleased. She had not been mistaken. Jessie Horsfield was in the automobile, and she had had a few moments in which to study Vane and his companion. The man's look and the girl's expression had struck her as significant; and her lips set ominously tight as the car sped on. She felt she almost hated Vane, and there was no doubt that she entirely hated the girl at his side. CHAPTER XXIV JESSIE STRIKES.