You see, for once in a while, it's rather nice to have nothing to do, and know that one's wages won't immediately stop.

Besides, to be waited on is a pleasant change." Ida's eyebrows straightened a trifle as they sometimes did when she was not exactly pleased.

It is by no means an unusual thing in the west for a packer or a ranch hand to converse with his employers or their friends on familiar terms, and it occurred to her that it was a trifle superfluous for him to insist on reminding her of his status when she was willing to forget it.

Still, she was quite aware that this man had not always been a packer, and she was conscious of an increasing curiosity concerning his past.
"That is an unusual experience with you ?" she asked.
"Oh, yes," said Weston.

"Anyway, during the last few years." She was foiled again, for she could not press the question more closely; and, sitting still in the shadow, she looked up between the dark fir branches at the line of gleaming snow and the great rock rampart beneath which they had crept.
"Were you ever up so high before ?" she ventured.
"Yes," said Weston.