Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/192

190 But when Jennifer went up the Athabaska it was still the place where the dreams belong, and through all the after years the stray tang of green wood smoke was to bring her a sharp thrill of longing for the North-West rivers again; for the hot, dry smell of the forest, and the short barks from a clearing where a red fox led her young to play in the moonlight; for the flowering vetches round her feet with the golden-rod, and the bird-calls from hidden singers as they passed, and the great cranes that flew against the sunset with long legs rudder-like behind. To Jack the days were sunshine and gladness only; from breakfast in the cook-scow, sitting with granite plate on restless knees among the boxes of tinned foods, to the fresh-cut bed of blue-joint grass or spruce branches in the white tent pitched on some lonely shore where the sandpiper ran and the cliff-swallow called. But for Jennifer, because no older palate can take life without the seasoning, pain was mixed with all the pleasure.

And yet Dick's endless tact and thoughtfulness made the world very truly a place of happy dreams. Outwardly he seemed just the friend of old, with his flashes of cynicism and hardness for others, but never anything but gentle deference for her. And yet the change was acute, and she knew it. For all his quiet courtesy and his nonsense with Jack she knew well that he was only waiting, tightening the bond between them with skilful, unerring persistence. He was only waiting, and by and by she would need all her powers for the battle that would come. But he made those days so beautiful for her; days of intimate friendly talk, of arguments on all things that were and were not; of song and laughter and silent times over the camp-fires when Jack had gone to bed.

And she knew that he was reading her; better than she could ever read him, and that he was a little amused, perhaps, at her scruples in small things, and at the prayers which she persuaded Jack to say each night, and which Jack once, to Jennifer's embarrassment, decided to say at Dick's knee before she went to bed.

"Land of Liberty!" said Jack, with a shake of her black elf-locks, "Why not? I'd be much gooder if I said them by the fire than if I hurried over them in the