His opportunity to assimilate them was not curtailed by any further demand for his services in the South Fox campaign.

He was as willing as ever, he told Lorne Murchison, to enlist under the flag, and not for the first time; but Murchison and Farquharson, and that lot, while grateful for the offer, seemed never quite able to avail themselves of it: the fact was all the dates were pretty well taken up.

No doubt, Hesketh acknowledged, the work could be done best by men familiar with the local conditions, but he could not avoid the conviction that this attitude toward proffered help was very like dangerous trifling.

Possibly these circumstances gave him an added impartiality for Mr Milburn's facts.

As the winter advanced his enthusiasm for the country increased with his intelligent appreciation of the possibilities of the Elgin boiler.