In one sense, chopping trees and shoveling gravel on the track leads to nothing." The flush Ida had already noticed grew a little plainer in the man's face, but he smiled.
"I'm afraid I can't promise to do that," he said.

"You see," and he seemed to search for words, "there is a good deal of the vagabond in me.

I never could stand the cities, and that ought to be comprehensible to you when you have seen the wilderness." "In summer," said the girl dryly.

"Isn't it very different during the rest of the year ?" "Oh," declared Weston, "it's always good in the bush, even when the pines are gleaming spires of white, and you haul the great logs out with the plodding oxen over the down-trodden snow.

There is nothing the cities can give one to compare with the warmth of the log shack at night when you lie, aching a little, about the stove, telling stories with the boys, while the shingles snap and crackle under the frost.
Perhaps it's finer still to stand by with the peevie, while the great trunks go crashing down the rapids with the freshets of the spring; and then there's the still, hot summer, when the morning air's like wine, and you can hear the clink-clink of the drills through the sound of running water in the honey-scented shade, and watch the new wagon road wind on into the pines.