a horse and manage a hotel, was nearer his level. Yet he hesitated;
he must choose one of two paths, and when he had chosen could not turn
back.

"You don't talk much," Sadie remarked at length. "Guess you must be
thinking about your mortgage."

"I was, in a way. It was rather useless and very rude. However, I won't
think of it again until somebody makes me."

"That's a way of yours. You think too late."

"I'm afraid I sometimes do so," Charnock admitted. "Anyhow, to-day, I'm
not going to think at all."

Sadie noted the reckless humor with which he began to talk, but she led
him on, and they engaged in cheerful banter until Long Lake began to
gleam among the woods ahead. Charnock skirted the trees and pulled up
where a number of picketed teams and rigs stood near the water's edge.
Farther along, a merry party was gathering wood to build a fire, and
Charnock did not find Sadie alone again for some hours after he helped
her down.

In summer, Long Lake has no great beauty and shrinks, leaving a
white saline crust on its wide margin of sun-baked mud, but it is a
picturesque stretch of water when the snow melts in spring and the
reflections of the birches quiver on the smooth belt along its windward
edge. Farther out, the shadows of flying clouds chase each other across
the flashing surface. Two or three leaky canoes generally lie among the
trees, and in the afternoon Charnock dragged one down, and helping Sadie