glad the summer is nearly over,” he said. “I don’t mind the heat. But we have had so little rain this summer. That’s so bad for the stock.”
“Yes, why the deuce don’t you manage better than to let your animals die? The sight of dead cows floating down this river makes me sick. I bumped into one the other day. Couldn’t get that poor brute’s eyes out of my mind.”
“Well, we don’t see ’em die for fun, Barrington. It’s impossible to watch them all the time, and the damned things will walk into the river to get cool, and then down they go in the mud and drown before anyone can get to them.”
“What a pathetic tragedy,” said Dane, drinking down the last of his wine. “How are you getting on?” he asked after a silence. “Have you formed a committee yet?”
“No.”
Dane turned lazily on his cushions. “You ought to hurry up with that, Benton. And drill them in the history of the Opposition. You’ve got to talk Massey, you know, as well as yourself. And Mobray has a pretty intelligent group going already.”
“I know. I will hurry up. I’m going to do it this week. I wish you’d come on the committee.”
“Good God!” Dane laughed suddenly, seeing this was what Roger had come in to ask. “That wouldn’t do you any good, my friend. The world hasn’t your easy tolerance. No, thanks, I won’t go on your committee. But I’ll help you all I can.”
He looked out through a clearing he had cut through his trees to the river. It put into a leafy frame a picture that varied with every day. In the foreground there was a little bit of river and then the stretch of a long valley,
