The sun was hot in the North then, the days were often calm, and there was a wonderful bracing freshness when the lingering twilight glimmered behind the pines.
It would be strangely pleasant to listen to the girl's soft voice while the canoes glided smoothly across sparkling lakes, and perhaps to tell her stories of the wilds when the smoke of the camp-fire drifted by and the cry of the loon came out of the shadows.

For all that, there was not much risk of his falling in love with her.

He was not a sentimentalist, and she had told him that her vocation was science.

Her journey was a duty, and when the duty was carried out she would concentrate on her studies, and as she had talent presently make her mark.

He did not think she would find the lode, but when she was persuaded it could not be found he would no longer be useful and they would go their different ways.