Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/154

 They halted their horses as by a common instinct and gazed at it with a mutual interest.

"Let's go over there and sit in that summer-house," proposed George.

"Let's!" agreed Fay, eagerly as if she too found something especially desirable in the anachronistic trysting place.

They swung from saddles and George tied the horses securely. Once gained, the summer-house seemed cordially hospitable. A clump of trees, still leaved but no longer verdant, fended off the chill lake breeze and filled all the air with a tuneful rustling. A late September sun looked in through the space that had been left unscreened of vine to form a door. Upon a rough-hewn bench in this beam of warming sunshine the young adventurers sat and must have felt their souls glow warm as well.

"Remember my telling you about that talk with Charlie King and my deciding the same day to be a horseless wagon builder?" he asked, trying to be casual.

"Why, of course I do, George," she said and smiled on him, encouragingly if not fondly. "I remember everything you ever told me."

"Well, there was something I left out that happened that day—something more important."

"More important? Why, what could that have been? And why did you leave it out?"