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Alton of Somasco: A Romance of the Great Northwest

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Title: Alton of Somasco: A Romance of the Great Northwest

Author: Harold Bindloss


        
Release date: December 5, 2004 [eBook #14261]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14261

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALTON OF SOMASCO: A ROMANCE OF THE GREAT NORTHWEST ***

ALTON OF SOMASCO

A Romance of the Great Northwest


By HAROLD BINDLOSS




Author of

"Winston of the Prairie," "The Dust of Conflict,"
"The Cattle Baron's Daughter," "The Young Traders,"
etc.




With Illustrations

By R. MARTINE REAY



A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK




COPYRIGHT, 1905

BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

This Edition Issued in March, 1906.




CONTENTS

CHAP.

      I  THE FIRST ENCOUNTER
     II  AT TOWNSHEAD'S RANCH
    III  HARRY THE TEAMSTER
     IV  HALLAM OF THE TYEE
      V  THE HEIR OF CARNABY
     VI  MISS DERINGHAM MAKES FRIENDS
    VII  ALTON BLUNDERS
   VIII  HALLAM'S CONFEDERATE
     IX  MISS DERINGHAM FEELS SLIGHTED
      X  THE UNDELIVERED MESSAGE
     XI  CONFIDENCE MISPLACED
    XII  IN VANCOUVER
   XIII  THE SOMASCO CONSOLIDATED
    XIV  THE COMPACT
     XV  ON THE TRAIL
    XVI  CAUSE FOR ANXIETY
   XVII  ALONE
  XVIII  IN THE WILDERNESS
    XIX  FOUL PLAY
     XX  THE NICKED BULLET
    XXI  OKANAGAN'S ROAD
   XXII  MISS DERINGHAM DECIDES
  XXIII  THE AWAKENING
   XXIV  HALLAM TRIES AGAIN
    XXV  ALTON IS SILENT
   XXVI  WITHOUT COUNTING THE COST
  XXVII  THE FORCE OF CALUMNY
 XXVIII  ALTON FINDS A WAY
   XXIX  THE PRICE OF DELAY
    XXX  SEAFORTH'S REINSTATEMENT
   XXXI  "THE THIRD TIME"
  XXXII  ALTON HOLDS HIS HAND
 XXXIII  MISS DERINGHAM'S CONFESSION
  XXXIV  THE CONSUMMATION




ALTON OF SOMASCO


CHAPTER I

THE FIRST ENCOUNTER

It was snowing slowly and persistently, as it had done all day, when
Henry Alton of Somasco ranch stood struggling with a half-tamed Cayuse
pony in a British Columbian settlement.  The Cayuse had laid its ears
back, and was describing a circle round him, scattering mud and snow,
while the man who gripped the bridle in a lean, brown hand watched it
without impatience, admiringly.

"Game!" he said.  "I like them that way.  Still, it isn't every man
could seize a pack on him, and you'll have to let up three dollars on
the price you asked me."

Now three dollars is a considerable proportion of the value of an
Indian pony fresh from the northern grass lands, with the devil that
lurks in most of his race still unsubdued within him, but the rancher
who owned him did not immediately reject the offer.  Possibly he was
not especially anxious to keep the beast.

"Oh, yes," said a bystander.  "He's game enough, and I'd ask the boys
to my funeral if I meant to drive him at night over the lake trail.
After being most kicked into wood-pulp Carter hasn't any more use for
him, and I'll lay you a dollar, Alton, you and your partner can't put
the pack on him."

Perhaps the Cayuse was tired, or desirous of watching for an
opportunity, for it came to a standstill, snorting, with its wicked
eyes upon the man, who laughed a little and shoved back the broad hat
from his forehead as he straightened himself.  The laugh rang
pleasantly, and the faint twinkle in Alton's eyes was in keeping with
it.  They were grey, and steady when the light sank out of them, and
the rest of the bronzed face was shrewd and quietly masterful.  He wore
a deerskin jacket fancifully embroidered, blue canvas overalls, and gum
boots to the knee, while, though all of them needed repair, the attire
was picturesque, and showed its wearer's lean symmetry.  The man's age
was apparently twenty-five, and eight years' use of the axe had set a
stamp of springy suppleness upon him.  He had also wrested rather more
than a livelihood from the Canadian forest during them.

All round him the loghouses rose in all their unadorned dinginess
beneath the sombre pines, and the largest of them bore a straggling
legend announcing that it was Horton's store and hotel.  A mixed
company of bush ranchers, free prospectors, axemen, and miners lounged
outside it in picturesque disarray, and high above rose a dim white
line of never-melting snow.

"Well," said Alton, "it's time this circus was over, anyway, and if
Carter will take my bid I'll clinch that deal with you.  Have the pack
and seizings handy, Charley."

The rancher nodded, and Alton got a tighter grip on the bridle.  Then
the Cayuse rose upright with fore-hoofs lifted, and the man's arm was
drawn back to strike.  The hoofs came down harmlessly, but the fist got
home, and for a moment or two there was a swaying and plunging of man
and beast amidst the hurled-up snow.  Then the Cayuse was borne
backwards until the vicinity of the hotel verandah left no room for
kicking, and another man hastily flung a rope round the bundles he
piled upon its back.  He was also tolerably capable, and in another
minute the struggle was over.  The Cayuse's attitude expressed
indignant astonishment, while Alton stood up breathless, with his
knuckles bleeding.

"I'll trouble you for that dollar, and I'll keep him now," he said.
"Can you wait until I come down next week, Carter?"

"Oh, yes," said the rancher.  "Your promise is good enough for a year
or two."

The speaker was a sinewy bushman in curiously patched overalls with a
bronzed and honest face, and he turned aside with a little gesture of
dislike, when a man of a very different stamp pushed by him.  The
latter wore a black felt hat and a great fur-lined coat, while his face
was pale and fleshy and his eyes were cunning.  His appearance
suggested prosperity and a life of indulgence in the cities, and when
he stopped in front of Alton the latter would have lost little by any
comparison between the pair.  The pose of his sinewy figure and the
clear brownness of his skin spoke of arduous labour, sound sleep, and
the vigour that comes from a healthful occupation.  The steady
directness of his gaze and quiet immobility of his face also conveyed
an indefinite suggestion of power and endurance, and there was a
curious grace in his movements when he turned courteously towards the
stranger.

"You soon fixed him, packer," said the city man.

Alton laughed.  "The boys mostly call me rancher," said he.  "Still, it
don't count for much, and I do some packing occasionally."

"That's all right," said the stranger sharply, for there was something
in Alton's answer which made him inclined to assert his dignity.
"Everybody seems to be a rancher hereaway, and you mayn't be too proud
to put through a job for me."

Alton nodded, and glanced at the speaker questioningly.

"No.  If it would fit in," he said.

"I'm Hallam," said the other man.  "Hallam and Vose, of the Tyee
mineral claim.  They've been fooling things up yonder, big pump's given
out, and I've a few hundred pounds of engine fixings back at the
railroad I want brought in by to-morrow."

Alton glanced at the pack-beasts waiting unloaded outside the store,
and shook his head.  "I'm sorry I can't trade with you," he said.  "You
see, I've promised another man to pack up some stores for him."

Hallam made a gesture of impatience.  "Then you can let him wait," he
said.  "This deal will pay you better.  You can put your own price on
it."

Alton's eyelids came down a little, and the stranger seemed to find his
glance disconcerting.  "You don't seem to understand.  I promised the
other man to bring up his things," he said.

"Well," said Hallam, "come along into the shanty yonder, and have a
drink with me.  We may fix up some way of getting over the difficulty."

"Sorry!" said Alton with a suspicious quietness.  "I don't drink much,
anyway, and then only with the boys who know me."

"Hey!" said Hallam.  "You are talking like a condemned Englishman."

"I can't help that," said Alton.  "I am a Canadian, but if you want
another reason, it wouldn't suit me to drink with you, anyway.  You
see, you didn't do the square thing with one or two friends of mine who
worked on the Tyee."

He turned on his heel, and Hallam, who was a man of some importance in
the cities, gasped with astonishment and indignation.

"What is that fellow?" he said.

The man laughed, and answered him in the bushman's slowest drawl.  "You
don't know much, or you wouldn't ask," said he.  "He's Alton of
Somasco, but if he lives long enough he will be one of the biggest men
in this country."

Hallam said nothing, but there was a curious look in his face which
puzzled the rancher.  It suggested that he had heard of Alton, and
something more.

Meanwhile Alton entered the store, where the man who kept it pointed to
a litter of packages strewn about the floor and sundry bags upon the
counter.

"That's Townshead's lot, and those are Thomson's things," he said, and
turned aside to listen to a rancher who came in smiling.

Alton took up a big cotton bag marked Townshead, tossed it aloft and
caught it, and then shook his head dubiously.  "That's rather too light
for ten pounds.  You want to try her on the scales again," he said.

The storekeeper, who was also a magistrate, grinned good-humouredly.
"It's good enough for the money, anyway," said he.  "But what's the
matter with the Tyee dollars, Harry, that you wouldn't do Hallam's
packing?"

Alton glanced at him gravely.  "I think not," said he.  "Put another
pound or two into her, and I'll pay you on your invoice for the last
lot you sent me.  Otherwise I'm going to whittle down that bill
considerably.  You see Townshead is too shaky to come down, and he
can't live on nothing."

"And the Lord knows when he'll pay you," said the storekeeper.  "It's a
good twelve months since he sent a dollar to me."

Alton laughed a little.  "I can wait," he said.  "Fill that bag up
again.  Get hold of the truck, Charley."

Charles Seaforth, who was apparently younger, and certainly a trifle
more fastidious about his attire than his comrade, shouldered a flour
bag, and twenty minutes later he and Alton tramped out of the
settlement with three loaded beasts splashing and floundering in front
of them.  It was almost dark now, though a line of snow still glimmered
white and cold high up beyond the trees until the trail plunged into
the blackness of the forest.  Then the lights of the settlement were
blotted out behind them, the hum of voices ceased, and they were alone
in the primeval silence of the bush.  The thud and splash of tired
hoofs only served to emphasize it, the thin jingle of steel or creak of
pack-rope was swallowed up and lost, for the great dim forest seemed to
mock at anything man could do to disturb its pristine serenity.  It had
shrouded all that valley, where no biting gale ever blew, from the
beginning, majestic in its solitary grandeur and eternally green.  Pine
and hemlock, balsam and cedar, had followed in due succession others
that had grown to the fulness of their stature only in centuries, and
their healing essence, which brings sound sleep to man's jaded body and
tranquillity to his mind, had doubtless risen like incense when all was
made very good.

Now Alton loved the wilderness, partly because he had been born in it,
and because he had a large share of the spirit of his race.  He had
also seen the cities, and they did not greatly please him, though he
had watched their inhabitants curiously and been taught a good deal
about them by what he read in books, which to the wonder of his
associates he would spend hardly-earned dollars upon.  It was more
curious that he understood all he read, and sometimes more than the
writer apparently did, for Alton was not only the son of a clever man,
but had seen Nature in her primitive nakedness and the human passions
that usually lie beneath the surface, for man reverts a little and the
veneer of his civilization wears through in the silent bush.

Thus he plodded on contentedly on his twelve-mile march, with the snow
and the mire beneath it reaching now and then to his knee, until his
companion stopped beside a little bark shanty and lighted a lantern.

"Thomson's dumping-place already," he said, pulling a burst cotton bag
out of the sack of sundries upon the Cayuse pony's back.  "Some of it
has got out, and Jimmy was always particular about the weight of his
sugar.  Well, the rest of it must be in the bottom somewhere, and if
you'll hold the sack up I'll shake it into my hat."

Alton's hat was capacious, and he had worn it during the two years
which had elapsed since his last visit to Vancouver, but it did not
seem to occur to him that it was in any way an unusual receptacle for
sugar.  His companion, however, laughed a little as he stirred the
sticky mass round with his wet fingers.

"There is no use giving him our tobacco and matches in," said he.
"Here are the letters Mrs. Neilson gave me at the post-office, too."

Alton took the letters, and his face grew a trifle grim under the
flickering light of the lantern as he thrust them crumpled into his
pocket.  "From England, and they will keep," he said.  "There's nobody
I'm anxious to hear from in that country.  Now we'll go on again,
Charley."

The Cayuse, however, objected, and there was a struggle before Alton
convinced it that resistance would be useless, while presently the
trail grew steeper and the roar of water came out of the darkness
before them.

"This," said Alton gravely, "is a great country, but it's mighty
unfinished yet, and it kind of hurts me to see all that power wasted."

"Wasted?" said Seaforth, smiling.  "Don't the salmon swim in it, and
the bear and deer come down to drink?"

"Oh, yes," said Alton.  "And sometimes the Siwash wash themselves in it
too, but that's not the question.  This earth wasn't made for the bear
and deer, and they've thousands of poor folks they can't find a use for
back there in the old country.  Isn't that so, Charley?"

Seaforth, who was a young Englishman of good upbringing, laughed.  "I
have no reason for doubting it," said he.  "In any case, none of my
worthy relations had any use for me.  Still, I don't see the connection
exactly."

"No?" said Alton.  "Well, it's simple.  We have the gold and silver,
and the coal and iron, too, while it don't strike one that these
forests were put here just to look pretty."

"The metals you allude to take some trouble in getting out," said
Seaforth dryly.

Alton nodded.  "Of course," he said.  "That's what man got his brains
for, and the one difference between a white man and a Siwash is that
he's always striking for something better."

Seaforth laughed.  "You are trying to get at something, as usual," said
he.

"Yes," said Alton gravely.  "I generally am.  Well, I can see what we
don't want of these forests sailing sawn up to China, and this river
sprinkled with sawmills and wood-pulp factories.  Then I can hear the
big dynamoes humming, and the thump of the mine stamps run with the
current the men who put them down will get for nothing.  What we're
wasting round Somasco is going to feed ten thousand people by and by."

"It's a big idea," said Seaforth reflectively.  "Still, I don't know
that if it were ever put through the place would look any prettier--and
the question is, who's going to set the whole thing running?"

"God knows," said Alton gravely.  "But somebody will, and if I live
long enough I'll make a shot at it.  Oh, yes, it's very pretty as it
is, but the greatest thing in this world is man, and it was made as it
is for him to master."

"You have curious notions for a Canadian bush rancher," said Seaforth.
"You are, however, really an Englishman, aren't you?"

"No," said Alton grimly.  "My father used to be, but he was too much of
my way of thinking and they fired him out of the country.  It's a thing
I don't like to talk of, Charley, and just now I'm a low-down packer
hauling in a pile of truck I'll never get paid for.  Steady, come up.
There's nothing going to hurt you, Julius Caesar."

The snarling and spitting of a panther came out of the darkness, and it
was only by main force Alton dragged the Cayuse past.  Then he laughed
a little.  "It's a pity we didn't bring a rifle along," he said.
"Panthers must have been made for something, or they wouldn't be here,
but it's a beast a white man has no kind of use for."

It was an hour later, and snowing fast, when they climbed out of the
valley and floundered over shale and slippery rock amidst scattered
pines to the forking of the trail.  One arm of it dipped again, and
wound through a deep sheltered hollow to the Somasco ranch, the other
ran straight along the hillside to Townshead's dwelling.  The hillside
was also steep, the beasts were tired, and the trail was very bad.
Seaforth glanced at his comrade when they stopped a moment, and saw him
dimly, tugging at the Cayuse's bridle, through the snow.

"It's a long way to Townshead's.  Still, I think we can make it out,"
he said.

Alton laughed.  "We have got to.  There's not generally too much to eat
at that house, and they'll want the things," he said.

There was another struggle with the Cayuse, which appeared reluctant to
face a treacherous ascent whose slope was somewhat steeper than the
pitch of an average roof, but once more Alton conquered, and they
dragged the beasts up, and then floundered on doggedly beside them,
seeing nothing but a dim pine or two through the snow.  Now and then
there was a rattle and a rush beneath them, followed by a faint splash,
and Seaforth shivered a little, knowing that the shingle they dislodged
had plunged into a lonely lake lying far below.  Still Alton said
nothing, but floundered on, apparently as cheerfully as though he would
be well paid for the risk he ran, until he crawled down into the
sliding whiteness, when a hide strip burst and some of Townshead's
packages were scattered about the face of a precipitous declivity.

Seaforth held his breath a moment as, gripping the bridle of a
trembling beast, he watched him until the dim moving figure sank into
the snow.  He could hear the wash of the unfrozen lake, and knew there
was no foothold on the slippery rock which sloped almost sheer to it
through the darkness close beneath.  Then a voice came up, "Wasn't
there a dry goods package of some kind, Charley?"

"There was," shouted Seaforth.  "But come up with what you've got, and
leave it."

A faint laugh answered him, and through the moaning of the pines he
caught the words, "If it's not over the edge here, I'm going to get the
thing."

Seaforth said nothing further.  He knew his comrade too well, and could
picture him clinging by hand and heel as he crawled along the brink of
the declivity with the lake below, and gasped from relief when once
more a dim whitened object lurched up out of the snow.

"Got them all," said Alton cheerfully.  "That last one was just on the
edge, and it took some thinking before I could get at it.  Still, I
guessed it was some kind of dress stuff for the girl, and if we lost it
it might be a long while before she got another."

They relashed the packages and went on again, floundering through
steadily deepening snow, until once more the roar of water met them as
they dipped into a hollow.  It grew louder rapidly, and presently Alton
pulled the Cayuse up on the brink of a river.  It came down frothing
out of a haze of sliding snow, tumbling with a hoarse growl about the
great dim boulders, whirled and tossed in a white confusion down the
wild race of a rapid, and was lost again.  How far the other bank was
there was nothing to show, for even the scattered pines behind the men
were hidden now, and Seaforth stared at the tumult of froth before him
very dubiously.

"She's pretty full to-night," he said.  "It has got to be attempted,
but I'm not quite sure how we're going through."

Alton laughed a little, and brought his hand down on the Cayuse pony's
flank.  "Well, if you'll come along behind me you will see," said he.

Seaforth was waist-deep next minute, and the water was horribly cold.
Then he was washed against a boulder, and fancied that one of the
pack-beasts kicked him in its floundering.  In any case one knee seemed
to grow suddenly useless, but he was not very sure of anything just
then, for a burst of spray filled his eyes, and the bottom appeared to
slip from under him.  He found foothold again in a moment or two, and
dimly saw Alton's head and shoulders above the back of a plunging
beast, while another was apparently swimming somewhere between them.
Then the one Seaforth led stumbled, and they went away down stream
together, clawing for a foothold with the shingle slipping under them,
until there was a thud as they brought up against another boulder.  As
he was not sensible of any especially painful blow Seaforth decided
that it was the pony which had struck the rock, and had just come to
this decision when his feet were swept from under him, and, still
clinging to the bridle, he was pressed against the stone while the
river frothed and roared about him.

Once more he felt that it was horribly cold, and flung a wet arm about
the rock, but the power seemed to go out of him, and he wondered
vacantly whether the pony would be able to extricate itself and him.
It floundered spasmodically for a while, and then lay still.  How long
this continued Seaforth did not know, but it was more than twelve hours
since he had left Somasco, and he had plodded up and down steep
hillsides, over rock and boulder, and through deep mire and snow, most
of the time, while there are limits to the domination the will of any
man may exercise over his worn-out body.

Seaforth had commenced to realize, still with a curious absence of
concern which was possibly the result of cold and fatigue, that as the
pony could not help him it might be too late very soon unless he made a
vigorous effort to help himself, when he heard a shout, and something
came slowly through the sliding whiteness in his direction.  Then there
was another shout, and when somebody dragged the pony clear of the
boulder he held on by the bridle and went floundering waist-deep up
stream.  The water, however, now sank rapidly, and soon he was clear of
it to the knee.  Then there was a clatter of hoofs on slippery rock,
and he lurched dripping and gasping into the partial shelter of the
pines.  Somebody smote him on the shoulder, and he heard Alton's voice,
"Get hold and hustle.  We'll fetch Townshead's in an hour or so."




CHAPTER II

AT TOWNSHEAD'S RANCH

It was chilly and damp in the log-walled living-room of the Townshead
homestead, which stood far up in a lonely valley amidst the scattered
pines.  The room was also bare and somewhat comfortless, for the land
was too poor to furnish its possessor with more than necessities, and
Townshead not the man to improve it much.  He lay in an old leather
chair beside the stove, a slender, grey-haired man with the worn look
of one whose burden had been too heavy for him.  His face was thin and
somewhat haggard, his long, slender hand rather that of an artist than
a bush rancher, and his threadbare attire was curiously neat.  He wore
among other somewhat unusual things an old red velvet jacket, and there
was a little cup of black coffee and a single cigar of exceptional
quality on the table beside him.

Townshead was, in fact, somewhat of an anachronism in a country whose
inhabitants exhibit at least a trace of primitive and wholesome
barbarity.  One could have fancied him at home among men of leisure and
cultivated tastes, but he seemed out of place in a log-built ranch in
the snow-wrapped wilderness swept by the bitter wind.  Perhaps he
realized it, for his voice was querulous as he said, "I wonder if you
have forgotten, Nellie, that we were sitting warm and safe in England
five years ago tonight."

Nellie Townshead looked up quickly over her sewing from the other side
of the stove, and for a moment there was something akin to pain in her
eyes.  They were clear brown eyes, and it was characteristic that they
almost immediately brightened into a smile, for while the girl's face
resembled her father's in its refinement, there was courage in it in
place of weariness.

"I am afraid I do, though I try not to, and am generally able," she
said.

Townshead sighed.  "The young are fortunate, for they can forget," he
said.  "Even that small compensation is, however, denied to me, while
the man I called my friend is living in luxury on what was yours and
mine.  Had it been any one but Charters I might have borne it better,
but it was the one man I had faith in who sent us out here to penury."

Townshead was wrong in one respect, for it was the weakness of an
over-sensitive temperament which, while friends were ready to help him,
had driven him to hide himself in Western Canada when, as the result of
unwise speculations, financial disaster overtook him.  His daughter,
however, did not remind him of this, as some daughters would have done,
though she understood it well enough, and a memory out of keeping with
the patter of the snow and moaning of the wind rose up before her as
she looked into the twinkling stove.  She could recall that night five
years ago very well, for she had spent most of it amidst lights and
music, as fresh and bright herself as the flowers that nestled against
her first ball dress.  It was a night of triumph and revelation, in
which she had first felt the full power of her beauty and her sex, and
she had returned with the glamour of it all upon her to find her father
sitting with his head in his hands at a table littered with business
papers.  His face had frightened her, and it had never wholly lost the
look she saw upon it then, for Townshead was lacking in fibre, and had
found that a fondness for horses and some experience of amateur
cattle-breeding on a small and expensive scale was a very poor
preparation for the grim reality of ranching in Western Canada.

Presently his daughter brushed the memories from her, and stood,
smiling at the man, straight and willowy in her faded cotton dress with
a partly finished garment in her hands, which frost and sun had not
wholly turned rough and red.

"Your coffee will be getting cold.  Shall I put it on the stove?" she
said.

Townshead made a little grimace.  "One may as well describe things
correctly, and that is chickory," he said.  "Still, you may warm it if
it pleases you, but I might point out that, indifferent as it is,
preserved milk which has gone musty does not improve its flavour."

The girl laughed a little, though there was something more pathetic
than heartsome in her merriment.  "I am afraid we shall have none
to-morrow unless Mr. Seaforth gets through," she said.  "I suppose you
have not a few dollars you could give me, father?"

"No," said Townshead, with somewhat unusual decisiveness; "I have not.
You are always asking for dollars.  What do you want them for?"

"Mr. Seaforth has packed our stores in for a long while, and we have
paid him nothing," said the girl, while a little colour crept into her
face.

Townshead made a gesture of weariness.  "The young man seems willing to
do it out of friendship for us, and I see no reason why we should not
allow him, unless he presumes upon the trifling service," he said.  "To
do him justice, however, he and his comrade have always shown
commendable taste."

The girl smiled a little, for considering their relative positions in a
country where a man takes his station according to his usefulness the
word "presume" appeared incongruous.  "Still, I should prefer not to be
in their debt," she said.

"Then we will free ourselves of the obligation with the next remittance
Jack sends in," said Townshead impatiently.

The girl's face grew troubled.  "I am afraid that will not be for some
little time," she said.  "Poor Jack.  You surely remember he is lying
ill?"

"It is especially inconvenient just now," said Townshead querulously.
"It has also been a sore point with me that a son of mine should hire
himself out as a labourer.  I am sorry I let him go, the more so
because the work upon the ranch is getting too much for me."

Nellie Townshead said nothing, though she sighed as she pictured the
young lad, who had been stricken by rheumatic fever as a result of
toiling waist-deep in icy, water, lying uncared for in the mining camp
amidst the snows of Caribou.  She did not, however, remind her father
that it was she who had in the meanwhile done most of the indispensable
work upon the ranch, and Townshead would not in any case have believed
her, for he had a fine capacity for deceiving himself.

In place of it she spread out some masculine garments about the stove
and coloured a trifle when her father glanced at her inquiringly.  "The
creek must be running high and Mr. Alton and his partner will be very
wet," she said.  "I am warming a few of Jack's old things for them.
They cannot go back to Somasco to-night, you know."

"I confess that it did not occur to me," said Townshead languidly.
"No, I suppose one could scarcely expect them to, and we shall have to
endure their company."

A faint sparkle that had nothing to do with laughter crept into the
girl's eyes, for there were times when her father tried her patience.
"I wonder if it occurred to you that we shall probably starve to-morrow
unless Mr. Alton, who is apparently not to be paid for it, makes what
must be a very arduous march to-night?" she said.

"I'm afraid it did not," said Townshead, with a fine unconcern.  "I
think you understand, my dear, that I leave the commissariat to you,
and you have a way of putting things which jars upon one occasionally."

A little trace of colour crept into the girl's cheek, but it faded
again as she sat down beside the stove.  Still, now and then she
pricked her fingers with the needle, which she had not done before, and
finally laid down the fabric and laughed softly.  "There is," she said,
"something distinctly humorous in the whole position."

"You," said her father, "had always a somewhat peculiar sense of
humour."

"Well," said his daughter with a slight quiver of her lips, "I feel
that I must either cry or laugh to-night.  Do you know there is
scarcely enough for breakfast in the house, and that I am dreadfully
hungry now?"

Townshead glanced at her reproachfully.  "Either one or the other would
be equally distasteful to me," he said.

The girl sighed, and turned away to thrust a few small billets into the
stove.  She chose them carefully, for the big box whose ugliness she
had hidden by a strip of cheap printed cotton was almost empty.  The
hired man, seeing no prospect of receiving his wages, had departed
after a stormy interview, and shortly after his son followed him.
Townshead discovered that sawing wood was especially unsuited to his
constitution.  Then the girl increased the draught a little and
endeavoured to repress a shiver.  The house was damp for want of proper
packing, and the cold wind that came down from the high peaks moaned
about it eerily.  It was also very lonely, and the girl, who was young,
felt a great longing for human fellowship.

Her father presently took up a book, and there was silence only broken
by the rattle of loose shingles overhead and the soft thud against the
windows of driving snow, while the girl sat dreaming over her sewing of
the brighter days in far-off England which had slipped away from her
for ever.  Five years was not a very long time, but during it her
English friends had forgotten her, and one who had scarcely left her
side that memorable night had, though she read of the doings of his
regiment now and then, sent her no word or token.  A little flush crept
into her cheek as, remembering certain words of his, she glanced at her
reddened wrists and little toil-hardened hands.  She who had been a
high-spirited girl with the world at her feet then, was now one of the
obscure toilers whose work was never done.  Still, because it was only
on rare occasions that work left her leisure to think about herself, it
had not occurred to her that she had lost but little by the change.
The hands that had once been soft and white were now firm and brown,
the stillness of the great firs and cedars had given her a calm
tranquillity in place of restless haste, and frost and sun the clear,
warm-tinted complexion, while a look of strength and patience had
replaced the laughter in her hazel eyes.

Suddenly, however, there was a trampling in the snow and a sound of
voices, followed after, an interval by a knocking at the door.  It
swung open, and two whitened objects loaded with bags and packages
strode into the room.  The blast that came in with them set the lamp
flickering, and sent a chill through the girl, but she rose with a
smile when rancher Alton stood, a shapeless figure, with the moisture
on his bronzed face, beside the stove.

"Take those things through into the kitchen, Charley," he said.  "I
think we've got them all, Miss Townshead.  I hope, sir, you are feeling
pretty well."

Townshead made some answer with a slight bend of his head, but Alton
appeared a trifle dubious when the girl offered him hospitality.

"I'm afraid the beasts are used up, or I wouldn't think of it," he said.

Nellie Townshead's eyes twinkled as she glanced at him.  "Could you not
have put it in another way?" she said.

Alton laughed, and brushed his fingers across the top of the stove.
"Well, it doesn't sound quite right, but after all the meaning's the
great thing," he said.  "This place isn't warm enough for you, Miss
Nellie."

He turned and walked to the wood-box, and after glancing into it
carefully straightened out its covering.  Then he strode towards the
door, and stopped a moment before he opened it.  "Excuse!" he said
simply.  "No, don't you worry; I know just where the saw and lantern
are, and Charley, who comes from the old country, can talk to you for
me."

He went out in another moment, but the fact that he was very weary did
not escape the attention of the girl, who also noticed the absence of
any unnecessary questions or explanations.  Alton was, she knew
already, one who did things the better because he did them silently.
Still, it was Seaforth whom, when nobody observed her, her eyes rested
most upon.

It was half an hour before the former returned with a load of scented
firewood upon his back, and, saying nothing, filled the box with it,
packing each piece where it best fitted deliberately but swiftly; then
he passed through the room into an adjoining one, and returned attired
picturesquely in Jack Townshead's overalls, which were distinctly too
small for him.  By this time supper was ready, and Seaforth, also
dressed in borrowed garments, seated at the table, but though Miss
Townshead had not lost the stamp of refinement she brought with her
from England.  and her father was dignified and precise, Alton showed
no embarrassment.  He also listened patiently to Townshead's views on
ranching and the mining prospects of that region, though he was already
looked up to as a master of the former industry, and contrived
meanwhile that the girl made a good meal instead of attending to him.
When it was finished he unfolded a carefully wrapped up packet, and
took an envelope out of it, though Miss Townshead noticed that several
others he laid down were crumpled and wet.

"Here is a letter for you," he said.

He glanced at the girl questioningly as she took it up, and fingered
one of the envelopes upon the table.  "Excuse?" he said.

Nellie Townshead smiled and nodded, and then, knowing that the
communication handed her was of no importance, watched him covertly as
he tore open a long blue envelope.  There were documents inside it, and
the man's fingers shook a little as he spread out one of them.  Then
bewildered astonishment crept into his eyes, and was replaced by a
flash of something very like anger, after which his face grew suddenly
impassive, and he thrust the documents all together into his pocket.

"Get up, Charley, and bring the tray along," he said.

Miss Townshead glanced at him sharply.  "What do you wish to do?" she
said.

"Wash up," said Alton simply.  "I don't know how you fix these things
in England, but this is a good Canadian custom.  Stir around, Charley."

"But," said the girl, "you don't know where the things are."

"Well," said Alton, smiling, "I figure I can find them."

He laid the cups and dishes on the tray, gave it to Seaforth, and
disappeared down a passage carrying the kettle, but not before Miss
Townshead had noticed that while his comrade, who had apparently been
used to the smoother side of life in England, displayed some
awkwardness, everything the big rancher did seemed appropriate, and,
because removing plates is not a man's task, she wondered at it.  They
came back presently, and by that time the girl, who had opened some of
the packages, held a roll of fabric upon her knee.

"If you can find a splash anywhere I'll forfeit a dollar.  Charley's
good at mopping up," said Alton gravely.  "I'm afraid that stuff's a
little wet, but it was the Cayuse's fault.  He started in kicking and
burst the rope, you see."

"It would have been wetter if it had gone into the lake," said Seaforth.

"The lake?" said the girl.

Seaforth nodded.  "Yes," he said.  "It was on the Tyee trail the pony
commenced kicking."

The girl looked up sharply, and there was a subdued brightness in her
eyes, for she had more than once shivered when leading her horse along
that perilous trail.  Alton felt for his comrade's leg under the table
and kicked it grievously.

"There wasn't any trouble, and the snow was soft," said he.  "You're
going to make a dress of that stuff, Miss Nellie?"

"Yes," said the girl.  "I could, however, wish the stuff was better."

Alton smiled gravely.  "Of course!" he said.  "Still, it don't count
for much.  You would look like a picture in anything."

Nellie Townshead glanced at him sharply, and for a moment there was a
faint sparkle in her eyes, for she had a trace of temper.

"Whatever made you say that?" said she.

Alton laughed.  "I really don't quite know.  I just felt I had to," he
said with a naive simplicity.  "I wouldn't have done it if I had
thought it would vex you."

After this he listened while his comrade talked--and Seaforth on
occasion could talk gracefully--until at last he said, "England's not
so very big, Miss Nellie.  I wonder if you know a place called Carnaby."

"Yes," said the girl.  "I once went to see rather a fine old hall
there."

"Carnaby Grange?" said Alton quietly.

"Yes," said the girl with a trace of curiosity.  "We spent some little
time in the grounds.  They lie deep in the woods, and there is a famous
rose garden."

"Yes," said Alton.  "All kinds of roses.  And the old place?  Tell me
about it!"

"Is very picturesque," said the girl.  "It looked quiet and grey, and
almost stately under its ivy that autumn day, but I could scarcely
describe it you.  You have nothing like it in Canada."

"No," said Alton gravely.  "I have seen nothing like it in Canada.  But
wasn't there a lake?"

The girl glanced at him curiously.  "There was," she said.  "I remember
it lay shining before us between the woods.  It was very beautiful,
quieter and calmer than our lakes in Canada."

A slight flush crept through the bronze in Alton's face, which grew a
trifle grim, and a light into his eyes.  "There is a lake at Somasco
where you can see the white peaks lie shining, and the big Wapiti come
down to drink," he said.  "There are cedars and redwoods about it which
except for a few in California, haven't their equal in the world, but
there's nothing about that lake or valley that's quiet or calm.  It's
wild and great and grand.  No.  They've nothing of that kind in the old
country.  Are not Abana and Pharfar better than all the waters of
Israel?"

"Apposite!" said Townshead.  "You apparently read the Scriptures?"

"Sometimes," said Alton simply.  "They get hold of me.  Those old
fellows went right down to the bed rock of human nature back there in
Palestine, and it strikes me there's no great difference in that
between now and then."

"When," said Townshead smiling, "I was a King in Babylon."

"No," said Alton reflectively.  "You're a little late on time.  The
Christian slave don't quite fit in."

Townshead glanced at him sharply, and said nothing, for the rancher had
once or twice already somewhat astonished him.

"Well," said Alton, "tell me, Miss Nellie, were the lilies where the
ashes hung over the lake?  I want to know all about Carnaby."

The girl seemed somewhat thoughtful, and a trifle astonished, but she
made the best use of her memory, and Alton listened gravely.  "Yes," he
said.  "I seem to see it.  The rose garden on the south side, the big
lawn, and the lake.  There's a little stream on the opposite side of it
that comes down through the fern from the big beech wood."

"But," said the girl, "how could you know that?"

"I think I must have dreamt it," said Alton gravely.  "Or perhaps my
father told me.  He used to talk of Carnaby, and I feel I know it well."

The girl stared at him in her wonder.  "But what is Carnaby to you?"
she said.

Alton rose up, and stood still a moment, somewhat grim in face.  "It
should have been my father's, and now when I don't know that I want it,
I think it's mine," he said.  "Anyway, I'm kind of tired, and I think
I'll turn in.  Excuse me."

He went out, and Nellie Townshead glanced at his comrade.  "Do you know
what he means?" she said.

Seaforth smiled and shook his head.  "I've never seen Harry taken that
way before," he said.  "Still, we'll hope he'll be better to-morrow.
He has been through a good deal to-day."

Miss Townshead did not appear contented, but she changed the topic.
"Then what did you mean when you spoke about the dress packet?"

"I'll tell you," said Seaforth, "if you don't tell Harry.  Well, when
the packet slipped down to the edge of the big drop I'm not sure that
the price of two ranches would have induced most men to follow it."

"But why did Mr. Alton go?" said the girl, with an expression which was
not quite the one the man had expected to see in her face.

Seaforth smiled.  "He may have fancied you wanted it.  Anyway, Harry is
a little obstinate occasionally, and when a thing looks difficult he
can't resist attempting it.  In the language of my adopted country
that's the kind of man he is.  Now I think I had better go after him,
because I fancy he wants soothing after that last speech of his."




CHAPTER III

HARRY THE TEAMSTER

The sun was on the hill slopes, and there was a dazzling glare of snow,
when Miss Alice Deringham stood with her travelling dress fluttering
about her on the platform of the observation car as the Pacific express
went thundering down a valley of British Columbia.  The dress, which
was somewhat dusty, had cost her father a good deal of money, and the
hat that was sprinkled with cinders had come from Paris; while the
artistic simplicity of both had excited the envy of the two Winnipeg
ladies who, having failed to make friends with Miss Deringham during
the journey, now sat watching her disapprovingly in a corner of the
car.  The girl was of a type as yet not common in Western Canada,
reserved, quietly imperious, and annoyingly free from any manifestation
of enthusiasm.  She had also listened languidly to their most racy
stories with a somewhat tired look in her eyes.

They were, however, fine eyes of a violet blue, and gold hair with a
warmer tinge in it clustered about the broad white forehead, while the
rest of the girl's face was refined in its modelling, if a trifle cold
in expression and colouring.  Miss Deringham was also tall, and as she
stood with one little hand on the rail and the other on the brim of the
hat the wind would have torn away from her, her pose displayed a
daintily-proportioned figure.  The girl was, however, as oblivious of
her companions as she was of the dust, and her eyes were at last keen
with wonder.  She had seen nothing which resembled the panorama that
unrolled itself before her as the great mountain locomotives sped on
through the primeval wilderness, and the wild beauty of it left a
deeper mark on her because her Canadian journey had been more or less a
disappointment.

Alice Deringham had tasted of the best that England had to offer in the
shape of sport and scenery, art and music, and had grown a little tired
of it all; while, when her father had announced his intention of
crossing the Canadian Dominion, partly on an affair of business and
partly for the benefit of his health, she had gladly accompanied him in
the hope of seeing something new.  Deringham was a promoter and
director of English companies, but his daughter having the fine disdain
for anything connected with finance which occasionally characterizes
those who have never felt the lack of money, asked him a few questions
concerning one object of his journey.  She only knew that the Carnaby
estate, which would in the usual course have reverted to her, had been
unexpectedly willed to the son of a man its late owner had
disinherited, on conditions.  The man, it appeared, was dead, and
Deringham desired to see whether any understanding or compromise could
be arrived at with the one son he had left behind in Western Canada.

To become the mistress of Carnaby Hall would have pleased Alice
Deringham, but, as she had already realized there was no great hope of
that, she had prepared to enjoy her Canadian journey.  It had, however,
fallen short of her expectations.  Ontario reminded her of southern
Scotland, and there was nothing to impress one who had seen the
Highlands when the cars ran into the confusion of rock and forest, lake
and river, along the Superior shore.  Winnipeg in no way appealed to
her, and she grew weary as they swept out past straggling wooden towns
into the grass lands of the West.

The towns rose stark from the prairie in unsoftened ugliness, and there
was nothing to stir the imagination in the great waste of sun-bleached
grass.  Day by day, while the dust whirled by them, and the gaunt
telegraph posts came up out of the far horizon and sank into the east,
they raced across the wide levels.  The red dawns burned behind them,
the sunsets flamed ahead, and still there was only dust and grass,
chequered here and there with bands of stubble, while driving grit and
ugliness were the salient features of the little stations they stopped
at.

Miss Deringham had read enough to learn that pistol and bandolier had
long gone out of fashion in Western Canada, where, indeed, they had
rarely formed a necessary portion of the plainsman's attire, but she
had expected a little vivid colour and dash of romance.  The
stock-riders she saw at the station were, however, for the most part
dress in faded jean, and many of them appeared to speak excellent
English, while the wheat-growers rode soberly in dusty and dilapidated
wagons.  Still the romance was there, though in place of the
swashbuckling cavalier she found only quiet, slowly-spoken men, with
patience most plainly stamped upon their sun-darkened faces.  Their
hands were hard with the grip of the bridle and plough-stilt in place
of the rifle, and the struggle they waged was a slow and grim one
against frost and drought and adverse seasons.

There was, however, a transformation when she awoke one morning and
found the Rockies had been left behind, and they were roaring down
through the passes of British Columbia.  This was a new, and apparently
unfinished, world, a land of tremendous mountains, leagues of forests,
such as her imagination had never pictured, and untrodden heights of
never-melting snow.  Glacier, blue lake, river droning through shadowy
canons, rushed by, and the glamour of it crept into the heart of the
girl, until as they swept down into the valley with a river two
thousand feet below, she felt she was at last in touch with something
strange and new.

Presently the hoot of the whistle came ringing up the pass, wheels
screamed discordantly, and the pines below flitted towards them a
trifle more slowly.  Then, as they swung rocking round the face of a
crag and a cluster of wooden buildings rose to view, Deringham came out
upon the platform.  He was a tall, slightly-built man, with a pallid
face and keen but slightly shifty eyes, and bore the unmistakable stamp
of the Englishman.

"That must be our alighting-place, and I am not sure how we are to get
on," he said.  "It is, I understand, a long way to Somasco, and when we
get there I really do not know whether we shall find any accommodation
suitable for you.  It might have been better if you had gone on to our
friends, the Fords, at Vancouver."

Alice Deringham laughed a little.  "I don't think you need worry.  Mr.
Alton will, no doubt, take us in," she said.  "A little primitive
barbarity would not be unpleasant as a novelty."

A trace of something very like anger crept into Deringham's eyes.  It
was not very perceptible, for he seldom showed much of what he felt,
but his daughter noticed it.  "It is somewhat unfortunate that we shall
probably have to avail ourselves of the young man's hospitality," he
said.  "You understand, my dear, that he is a kinsman of your own, and,
unless he can be persuaded to relinquish his claim, the owner of
Carnaby.  Still, I have hopes of coming to terms with him.  The charges
upon the land are very burdensome."

Alice Deringham's face grew a trifle scornful.  "You will do your
best," she said.  "The thought of one of these half-civilized axemen
living at Carnaby is almost distressful to me.  In fact, I feel a
curious dislike to the man even before I have seen him."

There was another hoot of the whistle, a little station grew larger
down the track, and here and there a wooden house peeped out amidst the
slowly-flitting trees.  Then the cars stopped with a jerk, and Miss
Deringham stepped down from the platform.  Her first glance showed her
long ranks of climbing pines, with a great white peak silhouetted hard
and sharp above them against the blue.  Then she became conscious of
the silver mist streaming ethereally athwart the sombre verdure from
the river hollow, and that a new and pungent smell cut through the
odours of dust and creosote which reeked along the track.  It came from
a cord of cedar-wood piled up close by, and she found it curiously
refreshing.  The drowsy roar of the river mingled with the panting of
the locomotive pump, but there was a singular absence of life and
movement in the station until the door of the baggage-car slid open,
and her father sprang aside as her trunks were shot out on to the
platform.  A bag or two of something followed them, the great engines
panted, and the dusty cars went on again, while it dawned upon Alice
Deringham that her last hold upon civilization had gone, and she was
left to her own resources in a new and somewhat barbarous land.

There were no obsequious porters to collect her baggage, which lay
where it had alighted with one trunk gaping open, while a couple of men
in blue shirts and soil-stained jeans leaned upon the neighbouring
fence watching her with mild curiosity.  Her father addressed another
one somewhat differently attired who stood in the door of the office.

"There is a hotel here, but they couldn't take you in," said the man.
"Party of timber-right prospectors came along, and they're kind of
frolicsome.  They might find you a berth on the verandah, but I don't
know that it would suit the lady.  It mixes things up considerable when
you bring a woman."

Deringham glanced at his daughter, and the girl laughed.  "Then is
there any means of getting on to Cedar Valley?" she said.

The man slowly shook his head.  "You might walk, but it's close on
forty miles," he said.  "Stage goes out on Saturday."

Deringham made a gesture of resignation.  "I never walked forty miles
at once in my life," he said.  "Can you suggest anything at all?  We
cannot well live here on the platform until Saturday."

"No," said the man gravely.  "I don't figure I could let you.  Well,
now I wonder if Harry could find room for you."

He shouted, and a man who was carrying a flour-bag turned his head and
then went on again until he hove his load into a two-horse wagon, while
Miss Deringham noticed that although the bag was stamped 140 lbs. the
man trotted lightly across the metals and ballast with it upon his
shoulders.  Then he came in their direction, and she glanced at him
with some curiosity as he stood a trifle breathless before them.  He
wore a blue shirt burst open at the neck which showed his full red
throat, and somewhat ragged overalls.  The brown hair beneath his broad
felt hat was whitened with flour, and his bronzed face was red with the
dust.  Still he stood very straight, and it was a good face, with broad
forehead and long, straight nose, while the effect of the solid jaw was
mitigated by something in the shape of the mobile lips.  The grey eyes
were keen and steady until a sympathetic twinkle crept into them, and
Miss Deringham felt that the man understood her position.

"Well," he said.  "What's the difficulty?"

The station agent explained laconically, and the stranger gravely took
off his battered hat.  "My wagon's pretty full, but I can take you
through," he said.

"It would be a favour," said Deringham, taking out a roll of bills.  "I
should, of course, be glad to recompense you for your trouble."

For a moment the man's eyes closed a trifle, then he laughed, and Miss
Deringham noticed that there was nothing dissonant in his merriment.
"Well," he said lightly, "there will be plenty time to talk of that.
These are your things, miss?"

The girl nodded, and wondered when, heaving up the biggest trunk as
though it weighed nothing at all, he laid it carefully in the wagon,
because she remembered having to fee two hotel porters lavishly for
handling it in Liverpool.  He stopped, however, and glanced at the
second one with a faint trace of embarrassment.  It had burst open, and
several folds of filmy fabric projected.

"My hands are floury.  You might be able to shut it up," he said.

Miss Deringham stooped over the box that he might not see her face.  It
was merely the skirt of an evening dress which had displayed itself,
but she had guessed what the man was thinking, and remembering his
excuse was not displeased with him.  When the box was in the wagon she
took out a dollar, and then for no special reason put it back again.
The man was a bush teamster, but she did not feel equal to offering him
a piece of silver.  She swung herself up into the wagon with her foot
in his hand, and wondered whether it could be by intent that he stood
bare-headed while she did it.  Then her father climbed in, and the man
at the station laughed as he said, "What's the odds, Harry, you don't
spill the whole freight on the dip to the ford?"

The teamster, who made no answer, shook the reins, and they went
lurching over a horrible trail down the valley, while Miss Deringham
delightedly breathed in the scent of the cedars and felt the lash of
snow-chilled wind bring the blood to her face.  She, however, wished
that the bundle of straw which served as seat would not move about so
much, and fancied her father would have been more comfortable had he
not been menaced by a jolting piece of machinery.  Their progress was
rudely interrupted presently, for the teamster standing upright reined
the horses in on their haunches, and the girl saw a line of loaded
ponies straggling up the winding trail.  One of the men who plodded
behind them glanced at the driver of the wagon with an ironical grin,
and Miss Deringham saw a warmer colour creep into the sun-darkened
cheek.  This was, she fancied, a man with a temper.

"Now," he said, and then stopped suddenly.  The other man's grin became
more pronounced.  "You can start in," he said.  "We're not bashful."

The teamster said nothing, but a faint twinkle replaced the anger in
his eye, when as they started again Miss Deringham glanced at him
questioningly.  "That," he said, "wasn't quite fair to me.  They knew I
couldn't talk back, you see."

Miss Deringham laughed, and when an hour or two later he pulled the
horses up beside a lake and made one or two alterations to enhance her
comfort, glanced at him again.

"Did you come out here from England?" said she.

The man's face grew a trifle grim.  "No," he said gravely.  "Whatever
could have made you think that of me?"

There were reasons why the girl could not explain, and the man
stretched out an arm with a little proud gesture that became him
curiously.  "I am a Canadian first and last," said he.  "Isn't this
country good enough for anybody?"

Miss Deringham was forced to admit that it apparently was.  A blue lake
gleaming steely blue in the sunlight stretched away before them between
the towering firs, and beyond it lay an entrancing vision of great
white peaks.

"You do not like England, then?" said she.

The teamster smiled a little.  "That," he said, "is not a fair question
to ask me.  You and your father live there, don't you?"

Miss Deringham felt that she had trespassed, but was astonished that
this teamster should have wit enough to silence her with a compliment.
She also decided that he should not have the opportunity again.

They went on, winding along steep hillsides, splashing through
sparkling rivers, and lurching through the dim shadow of the bush,
until when the saffron sunset flamed along the peaks they came to the
head of a long declivity.  On the one hand the snow towered in awful
white purity, on the other scattered firs sloped sharply down into a
hollow until they were lost in the fleecy vapours that streamed athwart
them.  "Sit tight," said the teamster.  "It's eight miles to Hobart's
ranch, and there's no time to lose if we're going to get in there
to-night."

He shook the reins, and the girl clutched the side of the wagon as she
felt the lash of the wind and noticed how the firs rushed past.  It was
jolting horribly, and she was relieved when as the trail grew steeper
she saw the man tightening his grip on the reins and heard the grating
of the brake.  It ceased suddenly, one of the horses stumbled, then
flung up its head, and they were going down faster than ever, while the
man had flung his shoulders back and was dragging at the reins.  It
dawned upon Miss Deringham that something had gone wrong and the team
were running away.

There was now only white mist beneath them and the roar of water.
Trees came whirling up out of it, rock and bush swept past, while now
and then the wheels hung almost over the edge of the declivity, and the
girl could look down upon the sombre firs in the haze below.  After one
glance, however, she felt that it would not be well for her to do so.
Suddenly one of the horses stumbled again, and the teamster flung her
father the reins.  "Get hold," he said.  "Line's in the trace-hook."

He was over the front of the wagon next moment, and the girl gasped as
she saw him crawl out with an arm across the back of one of the
galloping horses and his knees on the pole.  It looked horribly
dangerous, and probably was, for the wagon was lurching furiously down
the declivity.  Then he leaned out and downwards over the horse,
clawing at something desperately, and Miss Deringham would have shut
her eyes if she could have done so.  In place of it she stared
fascinated at the clinging figure while the trees flashed past, until
it was evident that the man had accomplished his task.  How he got back
she did not know, but he was once more on the driving-seat when his
voice reached her breathlessly.

"Get a good hold.  I'm going to put them at the hill when I can," he
said.

They swept on until the hillside sloped more gently on the one hand,
and the teamster flung, himself backwards, dragging at the reins.  The
wagon, tilting, swung partly round, then there was a horrible lurching,
and the lathered beasts were floundering up a slope, smashing down the
undergrowth and fern, until the vehicle stopped suddenly with a crash.
The man sprang down and Miss Deringham and her father lost no time in
following him, while when at last the team stood still trembling, he
crawled out from under the wagon and turned to them.

"That brake never was much good," he said.  "One of the beasts
stumbling jerked the line into the hook there, and the fore-wheel beam
gave out when we struck the tree.  I'm most afraid we'll have to stop
right here tonight!"

"But that, as you will realize, is quite impossible," said Deringham,
glancing towards his daughter.

The man nodded.  "It looks that way now, but you wait until I've fixed
things up," said he.  "Then if you feel like walking eight miles I'll
go on with you."

The girl noticed the swift orderliness of all he did as she watched him
take out the horses and tether them, tear down armfuls of cedar-twigs,
and then pack them between some flour-bag's and the side of the wagon,
over which he stretched a strip of waterproof sheeting.  Then he made a
fire, disappeared into the mist, and coming back with the kettle,
strode into the bush again.  In the meanwhile Deringham, looking into
the wagon, pointed to the twigs.

"Do you think you could sleep there?" he said.

The girl glanced at the twigs.  They looked soft and springy, and had a
pleasant aromatic fragrance, while the covering sheet was thick.

"I know I could not walk eight miles," she said.  "Where has our
accomplished companion gone to?"

Deringham laughed.  "To look for something for supper in the bush, I
believe," he said.  "I also fancy if there is anything eatable in the
vicinity he will find it."

The snows above had lost their brilliancy, and it was dark below, when
the teamster returned with several fine trout which he skewered upon a
barberry stem.  He also brought a deerhide bag from the wagon, and
presently announced that supper was ready, while Alice Deringham, who
long afterwards remembered that meal, enjoyed it considerably more than
she would have believed herself capable of doing a few days earlier.
She had travelled far in search of something new, and this was the
first time she had tasted the biting green tea with the reek of the
smoke about it from a blackened pannikin.  Grindstone bread baked in a
hole in the ground was also a novelty, and the crumbling flakes of
salmon smoked by some Siwash Indian a delicacy, while she wondered if
it was only the keen mountain air which made the flesh of the big trout
so good, or whether it owed anything to skilful cookery.

There was also, by way of background, the glow of the fire flickering
athwart the great columnar trunks which ran up into the dimness above
her, and the cold glimmer of the snows with a pale star beyond them
when the red flame sank, while the hoarse roar of an unseen river
emphasized the silence.  At first she felt there was something unreal
and theatrical about it all.  The light that blazed up and died, awful
serenity of the snow, and the vast impenetrable shadows filled with
profound silence, seemed all part of a fervidly-imagined spectacle; but
as the silence deepened and gained upon her the position was reversed,
and she seemed to feel that this was the reality, the environment man
was created for, and she, wrapped in the tinsel of civilization, out of
place in the primeval wilderness.  Her father, immaculate as ever in
his travelling tweeds, with his lean, pallid face, also jarred upon the
picture, and Harry the teamster, bronzed by frost and sun, with the
stain of the soil upon him, alone a part of its harmonies.  They seemed
no longer harsh and barbaric, but vast and subtle, and she felt she
must go back to the simplicity she had laid aside before she could
grasp their meaning.

It was the man who first broke the silence.  "I was wondering if you
would like a cigar, sir?" he said.

Deringham glanced at the Indian-wrought case, which was singularly
artistic, somewhat dubiously, but remembering that something was due to
their host, drew a cigar out and lighted it.  He said nothing for a
minute, and then turned to the teamster.

"Wherever did you get cigars of that kind from?  They are far better
than any I could find in Winnipeg," he said.

Miss Deringham noticed the man's eyes close a trifle, and fancied that
very little would call the steely sparkle she had seen when the
pack-ponies blocked the trail into them.

"Well," he said quietly, "a friend of mine sent them me, and I believe
they came from Cuba.  We don't raise cigars of any kind in British
Columbia."

Miss Deringham saw her father's face, and felt quietly amused.  He
could, she knew, assume a manner which went far to carry him smoothly
through discontented share-holders' meetings, but it seemed that the
men who dwelt in the wilderness were at least as exigent as those who
dwelt in London.  Deringham, however, glanced at the speaker.

"The least said is often the soonest mended, but if you think----" he
said.

The teamster laughed.  "It should come from me, but the fact is I was
worrying about that wagon and forgot," he said.  "Now, if there is
anything I can tell you about this country."

"I wonder," said Alice Deringham, "whether you know Mr. Alton of
Somasco."

"Oh, yes," said the man, with a little smile.

"You have worked for him possibly?" said the girl.

Harry the teamster nodded.  "Considerably harder than I ever did for
anybody else," he said.

The next question required some consideration, and he appeared to
ruminate over it.  "You mean what kind of man he is?" he said.  "Well,
he's not very much to look at, and there are a good many things he
don't know."

"So I should have fancied," said the girl, more to herself than the
listener, and wondered whether it was an effect of the firelight or the
curious twinkle had once more flashed into his eyes.  "You do not seem
to like him?" she said.

The man looked into the fire.  "The trouble is I know how mean he is,"
he said.

"Mean?" said the girl.  "That is niggardly?"

"No," said Harry; "I don't think he's niggardly.  It's another word for
low down in this country.  You see he has always had to work hard for a
living, and never had time to teach himself the nice little ways you
folks have in England.  He's just a big rough rancher who has fought
pretty toughly for his own hand, and that's apt to take the gentleness
out of a man, and make him what you would call coarse and brutal."

The girl seemed to shiver.  "Is there nothing to say on the other
side?" she said.

"Well," said the teamster reflectively, "I think he means well, and
never took more than his right from any man, while there are people who
would as soon have his word as its value in dollar bills."

"You seem to know him suspiciously well," said Miss Deringham sharply.

"I do," said Harry simply, as he stood up.  "Anyway, as well as most
people.  You know where I fixed your bed up, sir, when you want to turn
in.  There's nothing in this bush, miss, that would hurt you."

He stepped back into the shadows, and the camp seemed lonely without
him, while as the girl shivered in the cold wind, Deringham glanced at
her curiously.

"Well?" he said.

Then the red crept into his daughter's cheeks and a sparkle Into her
eyes.  "It will take a very long time to get used to.  I could almost
hate the man," she said,

"It is hard to lose one's inheritance," said Deringham dryly.

The flush grew a trifle plainer in his daughter's cheek.  "It is not
the value of the land," she said.  "But think of such a man, a brutal,
cattle-driving boor, ruling at Carnaby where my mother lived."

"Still," said Deringham, "the value is not inconsiderable, and Carnaby
would have been yours some day."

The girl made a gesture of impatience.  "That is not my complaint," she
said.  "I could have let it pass without bitterness to an Englishman
who would have lived in it in accordance with the traditions of his
race, but this man----"

"Will no doubt cut down the timber, open the fireclay pits, and
desecrate the park with brickworks," he said.  "That is, unless he has
convivial proclivities, and, finding himself ostracized, fills Carnaby
with turf and billiard-room blacklegs."

The girl ground her heel viciously into the mould.  "Have you any
reason for going into these details?" she said.

Deringham watched her closely.  "I only wished you to understand the
position, and to remember that you and I are both to some extent at the
mercy of our rancher kinsman," he said.

He left her presently to seek the couch the teamster had prepared for
him, and Miss Deringham retired to the wagon.  She found the bed of
cedar-twigs comfortable, but it was some time before she slept and
dreamed that a stranger dressed in coarse blue jean was holding high
revel in the Carnaby she loved.  She was awakened by the howl of a
wolf, and lay still shivering, until she saw the tall, dusky figure of
the Canadian approach the fire and stand there as if on guard with the
red light upon him.  Then with a curious sense of security she went to
sleep again.




CHAPTER IV

HALLAM OF THE TYEE

The morning was still and warm when the driver of the wagon pulled up
his team where four trails met in the shadow of the bush.  Miss
Deringham had somewhat to her astonishment passed the night very
comfortably and enjoyed the breakfast their companion provided.  The
bracing cold of sunrise, when all the bush was steeped in fragrance and
a wonderful freshness came down from the snow, had also brought her a
curious exhilaration, as well as a tinge of colour into her cheeks, and
now she was sensible of a faint regret and irritation when the man
glanced towards her deprecatingly.

"It would please me to drive you straight through to the settlement,
but there's a load of things I want at Calhoun's up yonder," he said.

He pointed to a trail that turned off sharply, and the girl glanced at
her father somewhat blankly.  "And what are we to do?" said she.

"Well," said the man, "you can wait here until Barscombe comes along.
He'll be riding in to the settlement presently, and would be glad to
take you for a dollar or two."

"But we might have to wait a long time," said the girl with a trace of
imperiousness.  "It would suit us considerably better to go on with
you."

"Sorry!" said the man gravely.  "I can't take you.  Calhoun's a busy
man, and he'll be waiting up at the ranch for me.  I told him I was
coming."

There was now no doubt about the colour in Miss Deringham's face.  Few
of her wishes bad been denied her hitherto, and most of the men she had
met had been eager to do her bidding, while the scarcely qualified
refusal of this one came as a painful astonishment.  The fact that she
should be left in the lonely forest to avoid keeping some rude rancher
waiting was distinctly exasperating.

Deringham, however, smiled a little as he took a wallet from his
pocket.  "I can understand it, because I am also a busy man when I'm at
home," he said.  "It is a question of the value of your time and Mr.
Calhoun's apparently?"

Though he possibly did not realize it Deringham's tone was a trifling
condescending, and there was something in it which suggested that he
believed anything could be bought with money.  He was, however, a
little astonished when the man regarded him gravely out of eyes that
closed a trifle.

"That's just where you're wrong," said he.  "If I could have taken you
on to save the lady waiting it would have pleased me.  As it is, I
can't, you see."

He said nothing more, but dismounting pulled the boxes out of the wagon
and laid some travelling wraps upon one of them, while Miss Deringham
affected not to see what he was doing.  "And how long will it be before
Barscombe passes?" said she.

"It can't be more than two hours," said the teamster quietly.  "All you
have to do is to sit there and wait for him."

He took off his broad hat when the others alighted, and Miss Deringham
noticed there was a trace of courtliness in his simplicity.  Then he
strode past her father, who was taking something out of his wallet, and
swung himself lightly into the wagon.  He spoke to the team, there was
a creak and rattle, and next moment the vehicle was lurching down the
trail.  Deringham stood still a moment, his fingers inside the wallet
and mild wonder in his eyes, and then smiled a little as his daughter
turned towards him.  There was a faint pink flush of anger in her
cheeks.

"The dollar does not appear to retain its usual influence in this part
of Canada," he said dryly.  "Possibly, however, the man was too
embarrassed by your evident displeasure to remember his hire."

Miss Deringham saw the twinkle in her father's eyes and laughed a
little.  "I don't think he was," she said.  "Had that been the case one
could have forgiven him more easily.  Well, I wonder how long Barscombe
will keep us waiting."

Deringham made a whimsical gesture of resignation.  "In the meantime I
notice that our late conductor has arranged a comfortable seat for
you," he said.

The girl sat down, and looked about her.  It was very still in the
bush, and the sound of running water drifted musically out of the
silence.  From somewhere in the distance there also came a curious
drumming which she did not know then was made by an axe, but it
presently ceased, and the song of the river rose alone in long drowsy
pulsations.  In front of and behind her stretched the rows of serried
trunks which had grown to vastness of girth and stateliness with the
centuries, and the girl, who was of quick perceptions, felt
instinctively the influence of their age and silence.  There was, it
seemed, something intangible but existent in this still land of shadow
which reacted upon her pleasantly after the artificial gaieties and
glitter of surface civilization.  Her impatience and irritation seemed
to melt, and the time slipped by, until she was almost drowsy when with
an increasing rattle another wagon came jolting down the trail.

Its driver pulled up, and regarded them with placid astonishment, but
he was amenable to the influence of Deringham's wallet, and they took
their places in the vehicle.  There was nothing remarkable about the
man, and he ruminated gravely when as they stopped to let the horses
drink Deringham asked him a question concerning their late companion.

"It might have been Thomson," he said.  "A big man, kind of solid and
homely?"

"No," said Miss Deringham reflectively.  "I should scarcely describe
him as homely."

"Well," said the other, "if you told me the kind of wagon I might guess
at him."

Deringham described the vehicle as well as he was able, and the
stranger nodded.  "That's Jimmy Thomson's outfit all right," said he.
"What did he charge you?"

Miss Dillingham laughed.  "It is curious that he charged us nothing,"
said she.

"Well," said the stranger gravely, "that was blame unlike Jimmy.
There's only one man in this country would do that kind of thing, and
as he hasn't a wagon to fit what you're telling me, it couldn't he him."

Miss Deringham had purposed asking who the man in question was, but the
driver started his team just then, and an hour later drove them into
the sleepy settlement and carried their boxes into Horton's hotel.  He
gravely invited Deringham to drink with him, and appearing mildly
astonished went about his business when the latter declined.  Deringham
smiled at his daughter.

"There are, as one might expect, men of somewhat different type in this
country, but I prefer the first one," said he.

Miss Deringham also fancied that she did so, though she did not admit
it, and that evening was made acquainted with yet another and more
different one.  Horton as usual served supper at six o'clock, and all
his guests were expected to partake of reasty pork, potatoes,
flapjacks, green tea and fruits at the same table.  To this he made no
exception, and would not have done so for the premier, and when a small
company of axemen and free prospectors filed in Deringham and his
daughter took their places amidst the rest.

The room was long and bare, boarded with rough-sawn cedar, and
furnished chiefly by the benches that ran down either side of the plain
table; but the aromatic smell of the wood was stronger than that of
stale tobacco, and the company avoided more than quietly respectful
glances at the daintily-dressed Englishwoman.

They were quiet men with grave and steady eyes, and though they ate as
if feeding was a serious business, and they had no time to waste, there
was nothing in their converse that jarred upon the girl.  Indeed, she
saw one break off in a story whose conclusion she fancied might not
have pleased her when a comrade glanced at him deprecatingly.  In
another ten minutes they filed out again, and Deringham smiled at his
daughter.  "What do you think of them?" he said.

The girl laughed.  "Ostriches," she said.  "Of course, I guess your
thoughts.  You were wondering if my kinsman resembles them.  How long
do we stay here?"

Deringham glanced at her covertly, and noticed the faint sparkle in her
eyes and the scornful set of her lips.  "That depends," he said,
"partly upon our kinsman's attitude, for if he offered us hospitality
we should probably stay a little.  You were also right, my dear, as
usual."

The girl's pose grew a trifle more rigid, and the fingers of one hand
seemed to close vindictively.  "It is grotesque--almost horrible, isn't
it?" she said.

Her father nodded.  "It might be," he said.  "Still, as you know, the
Carnaby affairs are involved, and there is a possibility of contesting
his claim under the somewhat extravagant will.  It is not altogether
improbable that I shall find means of persuading him to stay here with
his cows and pigs."

Deringham slightly accentuated part of the sentence, and again a faint
tinge of colour crept into the face of the girl and vindictiveness into
her eyes, for she understood him.  The man who had on his deathbed
bequeathed Carnaby to his grandson had driven out the young man's
father years ago, and approaching dissolution had possibly somewhat
clouded his faculties when he made the will.  Deringham, who had
married into the Alton family, and figured as a legatee, was, with the
exception of the disinherited, the nearest of kin, and it had been
generally expected that Carnaby would fall to his daughter; but perhaps
in an endeavour to treat both sides fairly, its dying owner had, in the
face of his lawyer's protests, inserted one clause which, for financial
reasons, rendered a second union between the houses of Alton and
Deringham distinctly advisable.  There was, however, a high spirit in
the girl, and she looked at her father steadily.

"But you were left the money, or most of it?" she said.

"Yes," said Deringham grimly.  "I was left the money."

The girl asked nothing further, for there was something in the man's
face which warned her not to press that subject.  She knew that her
father had long acted as financial adviser to the late owner of
Carnaby, but it was not astonishing that Deringham had not told her he
had exceeded the discretion allowed him, and been singularly
unfortunate in his speculations.

She rose, and a man who like themselves had finished his meal leisurely
followed them outside into the verandah.  He smiled as he drew out a
chair for the girl, and then sat down opposite her father with a card
in his hand.

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Deringham.  I'll introduce myself," said he.

Deringham took the card handed him, and glanced with an air of quiet
indifference at the stranger, while his daughter looked apparently
straight past him towards the climbing pines.  Nevertheless, she had
seen the man, and was not pleased with him.  He had a somewhat fleshy
face, beady black eyes with a boldness in them that was more akin to
insolence than courage, and a full-lipped, mobile mouth.  His dress was
correct enough, though he wore a somewhat ample ring with a diamond in
it, and his watchchain was too heavy and prominent, but there was a
suggestion of coarseness about him.  Her father, leaning forward in his
chair with an air of languid curiosity, the card in his slender
fingers, appeared his antithesis, and yet the girl fancied there was a
resemblance in the expression of the two faces.  She also felt her
dislike for the stranger increased when she saw for the first time the
look of greed and cunning in his face reflected in that of her father.
She had hitherto only pictured him as a skilful financier, but now she
saw qualities she had never suspected in him revealed as by a daring
caricature.

"Willard Hallam," Deringham read aloud.  "Hallam and Vose.  Land and
mining agents.  Advances made on mineral claims."

"Yes," said the stranger, smiling.  "That's me."

Deringham made no comment, but laid the card down beside him.  "I
wonder," he said indifferently, "how you came to know me."

The chilling evenness of his voice seemed to irritate the other man,
and Alice Deringham was conscious of a faint amusement as she glanced
at them.  Deringham in his tweed travelling attire, which, worn with
apparent carelessness, seemed to hang with every fold just where it
should be, was wholly at his ease, and there was a trace of
half-expressed toleration in his thin, finely-cut face, while Hallam
appeared to become coarse and embarrassed by comparison.  He probably
did not feel so, for diffidence of any kind is not common in the West,
but he may have realized that in any delicate fencing the advantage
would lie with Deringham.  Both, producing nothing and living upon the
toil of their fellows, played the same game, but, while the stakes and
counters are very similar, one played it in Vancouver and the other in
London, where a more subtle finesse is demanded from the players.

Hallam, however, smiled.  "I don't know that you will be pleased when I
tell you, but this should explain things," he said.  "Of course, since
your company took hold out here I have heard of you."

Deringham took the Colonial Journal handed him, glanced down a
paragraph, and passed it to his daughter.  "Your maid!" he said.  "I
fancied it was a mistake to part with her, my dear.  It is evident she
has not gone home."

Alice Deringham unconsciously drew herself up a trifle, as her eyes ran
down the column.  It was headed "Another missing heir," and ran: "We
are getting used to having our railroad-shovelling and trail-cutting
done by scions of the British aristocracy, and seldom ask them what
they did in the old country so long as they behave themselves decently
in this one.  Twice recently, as mentioned in these columns, the
successor to an English property of some value was discovered, in the
one case peddling oranges, and in the other digging a rancher's
ditches, while now we have another instance in the Somasco valley.  It
appears that long ago there was a family quarrel at Carnaby, England,
and though we do not know what it was all about, the owner of what we
understand is an encumbered estate turned out his son, who had the good
sense to come out to this country, where he did pretty well.  He died
and left a son, Mr. Henry Alton, well known in the Somasco district,
who appears to be a credit to the country which took his father in.
The owner of Carnaby dying later, left the ancestral property to him,
and, as in this case there does not seem to be a wicked uncle, Mr.
Deringham, the next of kin and a distinguished London financier who
has, we believe, had some dealings in local mines, has come out to look
for him.  Mr. Alton of Somasco will probably stop right where he is if
he is the sensible man his neighbours seem to think him."

"That's correct?" said Hallam, glancing at Deringham.

"I knew who you were when I saw you."

"Yes," said Deringham.  "The taste is questionable, but I can't deny
its comparative accuracy."

"Then," said Hallam, "Alton stands between you and this Carnaby
property?"

"I believe so," said Deringham quietly.

"It's a big estate?" said Hallam, and Alice Deringham, who knew his
capabilities, wondered when her father would effectually silence this
presumptuous stranger.  In the meanwhile he, however, showed no
intention of doing so.

"No," he said languidly.  "It is a small one, and heavily in debt.  I
presume you know rancher Alton by the interest you show in him?"

"Yes," said Hallam, "and I don't like him."

Deringham scarcely glanced at his daughter, but she realized that her
presence was not especially desired, and when she rose and went back
into the building her father glanced steadily at Hallam.

"I wonder why you told me that," he said.

Hallam laughed.  "Well, I generally talk straight, and I feel like
that," he said.  "Now, they don't keep anything that doesn't burn a
hole in you here, and I've a bottle of English whisky.  Don't see any
reason why you shouldn't take a drink with me?"

"No," said Deringham indifferently.  "I am, however, a somewhat
abstemious man."

Hallam went into the building and returned with a cigar-case and a
bottle.  The contents of both were good, and Deringham sat languidly
glancing over the curling smoke towards the glimmering snow.  It
towered white and cold against a pale green, shining high above
climbing pines and dusky valley, while the fleecy mist crept higher and
higher athwart the serried waves of trees that fell to the river
hollow.  Alice Deringham saw it, and drinking in the wonderful
freshness that came down from the peaks and permeated the silence of
the valley, realized a little of that great white rampart's awful
serenity.  She also wondered vacantly what the two men on the verandah
were talking about; but in this she was wrong, for Hallam, overcharged
with Western vivacity, was talking, and her father waiting quietly.

"No," said the former, returning to the subject with an affectation of
naive directness.  "I don't like Alton, and I figure he don't like me.
Nothing wrong with the man that I know of, but I'm not fond of anybody
who gets in my way, and Alton of Somasco has taken out timber rights
all over the valley where we're running the Tyee.  He got in with his
claim a day or two ahead of me."

"A capable man?" said Deringham quietly.

"Oh, yes," said the other.  "He's capable, so far as he sees, but the
trouble is he doesn't see quite far enough.  Now, there's not room
enough for two men with notions round about Somasco, and a one-horse
rancher can't fight men with money, so Alton's got hold of a good deal
bigger contract than he can carry through.  Anyway, now I've told you
what I think of your relation, you can if you feel like that let right
go of me."

Deringham smiled a little.  "This," he said, "is the best whisky I have
tasted in Canada."

Hallam laughed.  "Well," he said, "I'm glad I met you, especially as
you'll no doubt stop here a little, and size up the mineral resources
of the country.  There's lots of information lying round that should be
useful to you.  Anyway, you made a big mistake when you took up the
Peveril.  Dropped a good many dollars that time, didn't you?"

Deringham's face grew a trifle grim.  "As you probably know just what
the mistake cost us there is no use in me denying it," said he.

"Well," said Hallam sympathetically, "one can't always come out on top,
and if you're stopping down at Vancouver I may be of some use to you,
and you to me.  If you'll come up to-morrow I'll show you the Tyee, and
I've something better still up the valley."

"I'm sorry," said Deringham indifferently; "I'm going through to
Somasco!"

Hallam glanced at him steadily.  "Of course you are," said he.  "Well,
I've told you nothing Alton doesn't know, and I've letters to answer.
You'll excuse me?"

Deringham rose with him, and strolling along the verandah together they
stopped a moment at the door, close by where Alice Deringham sat at an
open window.  It was growing dark now, but the last of the afterglow
was flung down into their faces by the snow, and it seemed to the girl
that the resemblance between them had grown stronger.  Her father's
appeared a trifle less refined in its chiselling than it had been, and
there was a look which did not please her in his eyes.  It suggested
cupidity and cunning in place of intellectuality.

"Well," said Hallam, "you'll call on me at Vancouver anyway, and it's
possible we may be some use to each other."

The hint of a confidence or understanding between them which the man's
tone conveyed irritated the girl, but she saw that her father did not
resent it.  "Yes," he said.  "If I think I can benefit by your
co-operation in any way I will not fail to let you know."

Hallam went in, and Deringham leaned upon the verandah balustrade
smoking tranquilly while the shadows that left the rolling mist behind
crept higher and higher up the climbing pines until at last they
touched and smeared into dimness the ethereal snow.  Then the girl rose
with a shiver and turned towards her father as Horton lighted the big
lantern at the door.  Deringham's face was, she fancied, a trifle
haggard.

"I wonder why you have borne with that man so long," she said.

Deringham smiled a little.  "There are many kinds of men, and
presumably all of them are useful in their place," said he.




CHAPTER V

THE HEIR OF CARNABY

The sun was dipping towards the black ridge of firs on the shoulder of
a hill when Deringham and his daughter rode down the winding trail into
the Somasco valley.  The girl gazed about her with eager curiosity, but
the man who rode in silence apparently saw nothing, and it was only
when his horse stumbled into a rut that he glanced round for a moment
abstractedly.  Deringham had much to occupy his mind just then, for
while it was generally understood that he had made the journey at a
physician's recommendation, he had reasons for choosing British
Columbia to recuperate in.

He still retained control of the finances of Carnaby with the
concurrence of the trustees, who were country gentlemen of no business
capacity, and as it suited the family lawyer to remain on good terms
with him nothing more than a very perfunctory account of his
stewardship had been demanded.  The late owner of Carnaby had been a
man of simple tastes and unbending pride, who had a faint contempt for
his kinsman, and refrained from inquiries respecting finances while
there was no stoppage of supplies.  There were one or two men who
suspected that Deringham had profited by his relative's supineness, but
it was only a vague surmise, and they did not know that the legacy
bequeathed him had little more than an apparent value.  Deringham had
been unfortunate in his latest ventures, and could foresee considerable
difficulty in extricating himself from a distinctly unpleasant position
if the new heir decided to take immediate possession of his property.
The latter had, however, shown no great desire to do so, and Deringham
had accepted a commission from the trustees to ascertain his intentions.

A company of which he was one of the promoters had also invested
somewhat unhappily in Western mines, and Deringham, who purposed to see
what could be done with the depreciated securities, intended that the
expenses of his sojourn in the mountain province should be borne by the
shareholders.  He had acquired considerable facility in the art of
managing them, but the owner of Carnaby was an unknown quantity and
Deringham was anxious.

Presently his daughter reined in her pony.  "Stop a moment, father.
That must be the ranch," she said.

The man drew bridle, and for a moment forgot his perplexities as he
gazed at the scene before him.  Far down in the valley lay a still blue
lake with a great white peak shining ethereally at its northern end.
Dark pines rolled about it, growing smaller and smaller up the hillside
until they dwindled with spires clean cut against the azure into a
gossamer filigree.  Between them and the water stupendous forest
shrouded all the valley, save where an oblong of pale verdure ran back
from the fringe of boulders and was traversed by the frothing streak of
a river whose roar came up hoarsely across the pines in long pulsations.

That was all Deringham saw at first sight, but he realized that it was
very beautiful, and then commenced to note details with observant eyes.
There was a sawmill beside the river, for he could faintly hear a
strident scream and see the blue smoke drifting in gauzy wisps across
the hill.  The square log-house which stood some little distance from
the lake looked well built and substantial, and the road that wound
through the green oblong had been skilfully laid with rounded strips
sawn off the great fir-trunks.  Sleek cattle stood apparently ready for
dispatch in a corral, the yellowing oats beyond them were railed off by
a six-foot fence, and behind the rows of sawn-off stumps which ringed
about the clearing great trunks and branches lay piled in the confusion
of the slashing.  Deringham was not a farmer, but he was a man of
affairs, and all he saw spoke to him of prosperity that sprang from
strenuous energy and administrative ability.

"You are very silent," said his daughter.  "What are you thinking?"

Deringham laughed a little, somewhat mirthlessly.  "It occurs to me
that whatever our unknown relative may be he is a good rancher, if this
is his handiwork," he said.  "Well, we shall see him very shortly."

The girl's fingers tightened a little on the switch she held.  "We know
what we shall find," she said with a gesture of cold disdain.  "It
would be so much easier if he had only been an educated Englishman!"

"Still," said Deringham dryly, "since we are ousted from Carnaby I do
not see that it makes any great difference."

Miss Deringham's eyes sparkled, and a spot of colour tinged her cheeks.
Her mother had been one of the Altons who had long been proud of
Carnaby, and the instincts of the landholding race were strong within
her.

"No?" she said, with a little scornful inflection.  "And you could look
on while a cattle-driving boor made himself a laughing-stock at
Carnaby?"

Deringham smiled again.  "I am," he said, "inclined to feel sorry for
the Canadian, but you will at least be civil to him."

Miss Deringham made a little gesture of impatience.  "You do not
suppose I should be openly resentful?" she said.

Her father still appeared ironically amused.  "I do not know that it
would be necessary, but I fancy the Canadian will have cause to regret
he is an Alton," he said.  "No doubt it would be some solace to you to
make him realize his offences, but I scarcely think it would be
advisable."

Then they rode down into the valley, through oatfields, and between the
tall fir-stumps that rose amidst the fern, under the boughs of an
orchard, and up to the square log-house.  Nobody came out to receive
them, or answered their call, and Deringham, dismounting, helped his
daughter down, and tethering the horses passed through the verandah
into the house.  The long table in the big log-walled room they entered
was littered with unwashed plates.  Torn over-alls and old knee-boots
lay amidst the axes and big saws in one corner, the dust was heavy
everywhere, and rifles and salmon-spears hung upon the walls.  There
was no sign of taste or comfort.  Everything suggested grim utility,
and the house was very still.  The girl, who was tired, sat down with a
little gesture of dismay.

"This is worse and worse," she said.

Deringham, who was fond of his daughter, laid a hand upon her shoulder
reassuringly.  "You can go on to Vancouver when you wish," said he.
"Sit still and rest, while I see if there is anybody about."

He strolled round the homestead, and noticed that log barns and stables
were all well built, while presently he found a man plucking fowls in a
galvanized shed.  There was a row of them before him, all without
heads, while an ensanguined axe close by indicated the fashion of their
execution.  He glanced at Deringham a moment, and then fell to work
again.

"Oh, yes, this is Somasco, and the finest ranch this side of the
Fraser," he said.  "Can you see Mr. Alton?  Well, I figure he's busy,
and you had better wait a little.  Get hold of this.  It's your supper."

Deringham recoiled a pace when a somewhat gory fowl struck him on the
knee, and then sat down on a pile of cedar-wood staring at the speaker.
"I wish to see Mr. Alton as soon as possible," he said.

The other man looked up again, and grinned.  "You'd better not," said
he.  "Harry Alton's a bit short in temper when he's busy, and if you're
peddling anything it would be better if you saw him after supper.  Then
if you can't make a deal you can go on to-morrow.  There's plenty good
straw in the barn."

Deringham was not especially flattered at being mistaken for a peddler,
nor had the prospect of sleeping on straw any great attraction for him,
but he had a sense of humour, and, being desirous of acquiring
information, took up the fowl.

"Do you put up every stranger who calls here, and give him a fowl for
supper?  What am I to do with this one?" he said.

"Now, where did you come from?" said the other.  "That's just what we
do.  A fowl's not much for a man, anyway, and Harry will eat two of
them when he's hungry.  What are you going to do with it?  Well, you
can, pull the feathers off it, and fix it for cooking, unless you like
them better with their insides in."

Deringham gravely pulled out four or five feathers, and then, finding
it more difficult than he had expected, desisted.  "Mr. Alton is
apparently not married," he said.

The man grinned.  "No, Harry knows when he's well off, and it would
take a woman with a mighty firm grip to manage him," said he.  "Still,
there's one or two of them quite ready to see what they could make of
him, but Mrs. Margery scares them off when they come round bringing him
little things, and Harry's a bit pernicketty.  His father was a duke or
something in the old country."

"Mrs. Margery?" said Deringham inquiringly.

"Yes," said the other.  "She's not here just now, but she keeps the
house for him.  I help round and do the cooking."

Deringham, who could adapt himself to his surroundings, nodded.  "That
is what you would consider a soft job in this country?"

"Well," said the man grimly, as he pointed to the deformation of one
lower limb, "I am not fond of it, but it's about all I'm good for now.
That's where the axe went in, and anybody but Harry Alton might have
fired me.  It was my own blame foolishness, too, but when the doctor
told him Harry comes to me.  'You needn't worry about one thing,
anyway.  There'll be a job for you just so long as you're wanting it,'"
says he.

"He does that kind of thing sometimes?" said Deringham curiously.

"No, sir," said the other dryly.  "He does it every time, but the devil
himself wouldn't squeeze ten cents out of Harry if he didn't want to
give it him.  But how long are you going to be stripping that fowl?"

"As I'm afraid it would take me all night, I would prefer to give you a
half-a-dollar to do it for me," said Deringham.

The man straightened himself a little, and Deringham received another
surprise.

"Patent medicines and hair-growers are up?" said he.

"I don't quite understand," said Deringham quietly.

"No?" said the other.  "Well, you will do presently unless you get
right out of this shanty.  I'm fit to make my wages yet, if I've only
got one handy leg, and I can put my mark on any blame peddler who talks
that way to me."

"I'm sorry," said Deringham gravely.  "I have, you see, just come from
England, where folks are not always so well paid as you seem to be.  I
think I will look for Mr. Alton.  Can you tell me where he is?"

The man, who appeared a trifle mollified, pointed to the bush.  "He's
yonder, but if he scares you, you needn't blame me," he said.

Deringham picked his way amidst the six-foot fir-stumps girdled with
tall fern, over a breadth of white ashes and charcoal where the
newly-won land lay waiting for the plough, in and out amidst the chaos
of trunks that lay piled athwart each other all round the clearing, and
stopped close by three men who were making an onslaught on a majestic
tree.  Its topmost sprays towered two hundred feet above them, and the
great trunk ran a stupendous column to the vault of dusky green above.
It was, however, the men who most attracted Deringham's attention, and
he stood for a moment watching them.

Two were poised on narrow boards notched into the tree a man's height
from the ground, and one was huge and swarthy, so that the heavy axe he
held seemed a toy in his great gnarled hand.  The other, whose figure
seemed in some respects familiar, stooped a little with the bright axe
blade laid flat in one palm as though he were examining it, and
Deringham, who could not see his face, turned towards another who sat
at the foot of the tree sharpening a big saw.  His overalls were in
tolerable repair, while from an indefinite something in his face and
the way he wore them Deringham set him down as an Englishman.  Still,
he did not think he was an Alton.

"Can you tell me where Mr. Henry Alton is?" he said.  The young man
nodded.  "Harry!" he said.

Then the man on the plank above turned round, and Deringham felt
inclined to gasp as he stood face to face with the new heir to Carnaby.
The man was grimed with dust and ashes.  His blue shirt rolled back to
the shoulders left uncovered arms that were corded like a smith's, and
was rent at the neck so that Deringham could see the finely-arched
chest.  The overalls, tight-belted round the waist, set off the
solidity of his shoulders and the leanness of the flank, while with the
first glance at his face Deringham recognized the teamster who had
driven them through the bush.

He stood poised on the few inches of springy redwood looking down upon
him with a grimly humorous twinkle in his eyes, but through the smears
of perspiration and the charcoal grime Deringham now recognized the
expression of quiet forcefulness and the directness of gaze which was
his birthright.

"Mr. Henry Alton?" he said.

"Yes," said the other quietly.

There was a moment's embarrassing silence, for Alton said nothing
further, and Deringham gazed at the man he had journeyed three thousand
miles to see.

"I should like a little talk with you," he said presently.

"Can't oblige you," said the other.  "I couldn't spare more than a
minute now for a railroad director.  You can tell me anything you want
after supper."

Deringham lost a little of his usual serenity.  "My business is of some
importance," he said.

Alton smiled grimly.  "I can't help that.  So is mine," said he.  "A
lawyer, by the stamp of you.  Well, you're trailing the wrong man,
because I don't owe anybody money.  We'll put you up to-night, and you
can look for him to-morrow."

"I have come from Carnaby, England," said Deringham, watching the
effect upon the man.  "You are, I presume the grandson of its late
owner."

This shot got home, but the effect was not altogether what Deringham
had anticipated, for Alton's big hands tightened on the axe and his
face grew very stern.  "I'm not proud of the connection, anyway," he
said.  "Alton of Somasco is good enough for me."

"But," said Deringham quietly, "I have come to talk things over with
you.  Tristan Alton left you Carnaby."

Alton straightened himself a little and flung out an arm, while
Deringham recognized the Alton pride as with a sweeping gesture he
pointed to wide lake, forest-shrouded hillside, and the clearing in the
valley.

"He turned out my father because he knew his mind, and now when there
is no one else leaves me the played-out property.  Thank God, I don't
want it, while that's all mine," he said.  "What brings you here to
talk of Carnaby?"

Deringham smiled a little.  "The executor sent me, and I have come a
long way," said he.  "When I tell you that I am Ralph Deringham you
should know me."

Alton nodded gravely.  "Then you can tell me all about it after supper,
and we'll have plenty time for talking, because you'll stay a while
with me," he said.  "If you'll go back to the house you'll find some
cigars that might please you in the bureau.  Sorry I can't come with
you, but I'm busy.  Are you ready, Tom?"

He turned, and swung up the axe while the big bushman swept his blade
aloft, and Deringham watched them curiously.  Alton swayed with a
steely suppleness from the waist, and the broad wedge of steel flashed
about his head before it came down ringing.  The man had a few inches
of springy wood which bent and heaved beneath him to stand upon, but
the great blade descended exactly where the last chip had lain, and
when it hissed aloft again that of the silent axeman dropped into the
notch it made.  Deringham knew a little about a good many things,
including sword-play, and he realized as he watched the whirl and flash
of blades, precision of effort, and exactitude of time, that this was
an example of man's mastery over the trenchant steel.

Presently the man with the saw rose and touched his shoulder.  "I fancy
we had better draw aside a little," he said.  "She will come down in
another minute just here."

Now Deringham had seen trees wedged over and drawn down by ropes in
England, and wondered a little when the man pointed to the spot where
he was standing.

"If you don't resent the question, how do you know?" he said.

The other man laughed a little.  "Harry told me, and he's seldom more
than a foot out," he said.

There was a groaning of fibres as Deringham drew aside, but the two
figures on the springy planks still smote and swung, until
simultaneously they flung the axes down and, sprang.  Then the great
fir quivered a little, toppled, lurched, and fell, and the hillside
resounded to the thud it made.  It also smote the trembling soil just
where the man with the saw had indicated.  Then Alton signed to his
assistant, and strode away with the axe on his shoulder towards another
tree.  The saw-sharpener laughed a little as he sat down again.

"Now you have had your say it would be better if you waited until after
supper," he said.  "You see, one thing at one time is quite enough for
Harry, and he really isn't in the least uncivil when you understand
him.  Still, it's no use trying to make him listen when he doesn't want
to."

"That," said Deringham dryly, "was always one of the characteristics of
his family.  You are presumably an Englishman?"

The other man laughed a little.  "Yes," he said, "I'm Charles Seaforth,
better known to the boys here as the Honourable Charley, though I have
no especial right to the title, and am fortunate in holding a small
share in the Somasco ranch, which I owe to my partner's generosity."

"Do I understand that he gave it you?" said Deringham.

Seaforth nodded.  "You would be near the mark if you came to that
conclusion."

"And is Mr. Alton in the habit of making similar presents?" said
Deringham.

Seaforth glanced towards the sinewy figure with the glinting axe, and
smiled again.  "That," he said quietly, "is one of the most generous
men in the Dominion of Canada, but I should not care to be the man who
attempted to take advantage of him."

Deringham said nothing further, though he was sensible of a slight
uneasiness, and presently went back to the house to rejoin his
daughter, while the dusk was creeping across the valley when the men
from the sawmill and clearing came home, and Deringham led his daughter
out when he heard Alton's voice in the verandah.  The latter and his
partner were together, and the girl at first felt a slight sense of
relief as her glance fell upon Seaforth, who stood with his wide hat in
his hand.  He was, for that country, somewhat fastidious in dress, his
eyes were mildly humorous, and his face was pleasant, while he had not
as yet wholly lost the stamp of the graceful idler he had brought with
him from England.

"This," said Deringham with the faintest trace of irony, "is our
kinsman, Mr. Henry Alton of Carnaby.  You have seen him already.  My
daughter Alice, Mr. Alton!"

The girl stood still a moment, and glanced at Seaforth, whom she could
not recollect having seen before, with something that suggested not
altogether unpleased surprise in her face.  His appearance and attitude
disarmed her, but as she was about to speak to him the other man moved
so that the fading light fell full upon him.  He stood, tall and almost
statuesque in his torn overalls, with the misty pines rolling up the
hillside behind him, and a big axe in his hand--a type, it seemed to
her, of Western barbarity--and a red spot, faint but perceptible, rose
into her cheeks as he bent his head.  Then she came near forgetting
what was due to both of them in her astonishment and anger.

"You!" she said.

"Yes," said the axeman gravely.  "Still, your father made a little
mistake.  I'm Alton of Somasco."

Then he turned and moved forward with a gesture that was almost
courtly.  "You are very welcome to this poor house of mine," he said.




CHAPTER VI

MISS DERINGHAM MAKES FRIENDS

The Homeric supper was over, and Miss Deringham, who, sitting next to
Alton at the head of the long table, had watched the stalwart axeman
feed with sensations divided between disgust and wonder, was talking to
Seaforth on the verandah, when her father sat by a window of the room
his kinsman called his own.  There were survey maps, tassels of oats,
and a great Wapiti head upon the wall, while Alton himself lay almost
full length in a deerhide chair.  The window was open wide, and the
vista of lake, pine-shrouded hillside, and snow, framed by its log
casing, steeped in nocturnal harmonies of silver and blue.  Out of the
stillness came the scent of balsam, and the sighing of a little breeze
amidst the pines.

Deringham held a good cigar, and there was a cup of coffee beside him,
while he was not wholly sorry that they sat in darkness.  He had
realized that Alton of Somasco was by no means a fool, and waited his
questions with some anxiety.  The rancher, however, had apparently no
present intention of asking any.

"So they've been wondering when I am coming over," he said
reflectively.  "I don't know that I'll come at all."  Deringham looked
down at his cigar to cover his astonishment.  "But you are an Alton of
Carnaby," he said.

"Yes," said Alton slowly.  "But that is one of the things I want to
forget.  You see they drove my father out because he had the grit to
marry the woman who loved him instead of another one who had the money,
but you know all that?"

Deringham nodded, and Alton's face showed grim in the moonlight as he
continued: "But what you don't know is how he fought his way uphill in
this country, and what my mother suffered helping him.  Oh, yes, I can
remember her well, gentle, brave, and patient as she was, and know what
it must have cost her to camp down alone in the bush, and fight through
the hard winter in the ice and snow.  Well, she was too good for this
world, and she just faded out of it before the good time came.  I think
they must have a special place for women of her kind in the other one."

Deringham only nodded again, because this type of man was new to him,
and he had learned to keep silent when in doubt; but Alton's big right
hand closed into a fist.

"And now, when I have Somasco, the man who had not a dollar for his
only son leaves me Carnaby," he said.  "There.  Look out and see.
Timber, lake and clearing, cattle, mills, and crops, the finest ranch
in the district.  My father commenced it, and I have finished.  The
Almighty made him a man, and he wouldn't sell his birthright to loaf
his days away, overfed, at Carnaby."

Alton dropped his cigar, and laughed a little.  "Well, I'm talking like
a fool again.  There are times when I can't help it.  It's a way of
mine."

Deringham sat still smoking, and thinking rapidly.  He had never had
dealings with a man of this description before, but while he surmised
that Alton of Somasco might under some conditions prove himself a
headstrong fool, it was evident that there were limits to his folly.
The man's handiwork spoke for him, and his energy and intentness had
not escaped Deringham's attentions, while the occasional utterances
that might have appeared bombastic coming from other men were redeemed
in his case by the tone of naive sincerity and imperious ring.
Deringham was becoming conscious of a vague respect for and fear of his
companion.

"We are apparently no nearer the answer to my question," he said at
length.

"No," said Alton, smiling.  "This thing will take some thinking over.
Carnaby isn't exactly what you call a rich property?"

"It is heavily encumbered," said Deringham, almost too eagerly.

Alton nodded, "Still, it must be worth a little, and would give the
folks who lived there a standing in the old country?"

"Yes," said Deringham thoughtfully, and was once more astonished by his
companion's answer.

"Well," he said slowly.  "I was thinking about your daughter.  All
this, it seems to me, is mighty rough on her.  It would hurt her to be
turned out of Carnaby?"

"Isn't that beside the question?" said Deringham with a trace of
stiffness.

Alton took up another cigar and lighted it.  "I don't quite know that
it is," he said.  "You see, I remember a good deal what my mother had
to put up with, and it has made me kind of sorry for women who have to
do without the things they have been used to.  Now Miss Deringham has
had a pretty good time in the old country?"

Deringham moved his head very slightly.  "I scarcely think we need go
into that, but it is incontrovertible that the loss of Carnaby would
make a difference to her," he said.

Alton sat silent a space, and then while Deringham wondered, smiled a
little.  "And she might have kept it but for a very little thing that
happened a month or two ago," he said.  "If the juniper-twigs had
broken it would have saved considerable trouble to everybody.  I was
back there in the mountains looking for a silver lead, you see."

"Silver mines are, I understand, not always profitable to the man who
finds them, and I should have fancied you had already sufficient scope
for your energies," said Deringham dryly.

Alton laughed, but there was a trace of grimness in his voice.  "If I
once get my stakes in on the lead this one's going to be, and if I
could get the dollars I could do a good deal for Somasco," he said.
"We want roads and mills, the biggest orchard in the province, and a
fruit cannery, and we're going to have them presently.  That's why I
wanted the silver."

"You did not find it then?" said Deringham, who was not unwilling to
follow his companion from the former topic.

"No," said Alton, "not that time, but I will by and by.  Well, there
was a good deal of snow up in the ranges, and my feet got away from me
one evening when we were crawling along the edge of a gully.  There was
a river and big boulders some five hundred feet below, and I slipped
down, clawing at the snow, until I grabbed a little bunch of juniper
just on the edge.  Part of it tore up, but I got a grip of a better
handful, and hung on to it, with most of me swinging over the gully.
Charley was stripping off the pack-rope on the slope above, and he was
mighty quick, but I knew that bush was coming away with me, and didn't
think he could be fast enough.  I didn't feel exactly happy, but while
I've read that folks think of some astonishing things when they're
starting out on the long trail, it wasn't that way with me.  I could
only remember there was a man I'd never got even with who'd badly
cheated me."

[Illustration:  "There was a river and big boulders some five hundred
feet below."]

Deringham felt a little shiver run through him, for there was a grim
vindictiveness in the speaker's tone, and he felt that Alton of Somasco
would not lightly forgive an injury.

"You managed to crawl up?" he said.

"No," said Alton simply, "I didn't.  I lay there watching Charley, and
felt the bush drawing out, until the rope came down and Charley hauled
me up.  It would have made a big difference to Miss Deringham if he'd
been a second or two longer.  Well, we'll have lots of time for
talking, because you're out for your health, and we'll keep you right
here until we see what Somasco can do for you, and just now I see Miss
Deringham alone on the verandah."

He rose, and left Deringham sitting by the window.  The moon had swung
higher now, and the lake was a blaze of silver, but Deringham scarcely
noticed it or the ethereal line of snow.  In place of it he saw a
shadowy figure hanging between earth and heaven with tense fingers
gripping a little bush, while a river frothed down the black hollow
five hundred feet below, and remembered that even in that moment the
man who hung there regretted he could not repay somebody who had
cheated him.  Then he rose and moved once or twice up and down the
room, his fancy still dwelling upon the picture.  If the juniper-twigs
had yielded it would have made a great difference to him as well as his
daughter.  He sat down again presently and stared at the valley, seeing
nothing as he remembered that Alton of Somasco might go back to the
ranges again, and then with an effort shook the fancies from him.  They
were not wholesome for a man hemmed in by difficulties as he was then.

In the meanwhile his daughter stood with one hand on the verandah
balustrade, listening to the song of the river which came sonorously
through the shadows of the bush.  She also breathed in the scent of the
firs, and found it pleasant, but it was instinctively she did so, for
her thoughts were also busy.  Alice Deringham had noticed her father's
fits of abstraction as well as the anxiety in his face, and had no
great difficulty in connecting them with the loss of Carnaby.  She was
also fond of him, for Deringham had shown only his better side to her,
and sensible of a very bitter feeling towards the man who had
supplanted him.  In addition to this, she remembered the faint
amusement in his eyes when he noticed the glint of a silver coin she
held half-covered in her hand, and her pulses throbbed a little faster.
The man had placed her in a ridiculous position, and had he guessed her
feelings towards him he would probably not have made his appearance as
he did just then.

The boards creaked behind her, and turning partly round she
straightened herself with a slow sinuous gracefulness, and stood drawn
up to her full height looking at the newcomer.  He stood still a moment
with veiled admiration in his eyes, and this was not altogether
surprising in one who had dwelt for the most part far remote from
civilization in the lonely bush.  Alice Deringham had been considered
somewhat of a beauty in London, and it was possible that she knew the
pale moonlight and the harmonies of blue and silver she stood out
against enhanced the symmetry of her outline.  The man stood watching
her with his head bent a trifle, but Miss Deringham evinced a fine
indifference.  She had formed a somewhat mistaken estimate of him
already.

"I want to tell you that I'm sorry," he said.

The girl fancied she understood him, and it increased her anger, for
the fact that this barbarian of the bush should venture to express pity
for her was galling.  Still, she had no intention of admitting it, and
regarded him inquiringly with a half-contemptuous indifference which
she had found especially effective with presumptuous young men in
England.  Somewhat to her astonishment it apparently had no result at
all, for Alton returned her gaze gravely and without embarrassment.

"I don't understand," she said.

"I was hoping you would, because I felt I must tell you, and I'm not
good at talking," said the man.  "I can't help seeing that you are
vexed with me."

If Alton had intended to be conciliatory he had signally failed,
because Miss Deringham had no intention of admitting that anything he
could do would cause her anger.

"I am afraid you are taking things for granted," she said.

Alton smiled gravely, and the girl noticed that he accepted the onus of
the explanation she had forced upon him.

"I really don't think you should be," he said.  "I can't help being
Tristan Alton's grandson, you see, and we are some kind of relations
and ought to be friendly."

Miss Deringham laughed a little.  "Relations do not always love each
other very much," said she.

"No," said Alton.  "Still, I think they should, and, even if it hurts,
I feel I've got to tell you I'm sorry.  If you would only take it, it
would please me to give you back Carnaby."

The girl almost gasped with astonishment and indignation.  "That is a
trifle unnecessary, since you know it is perfectly impossible," she
said.

She had at last roused the man, for the moonlight showed a darker
colour creeping into his tan.  "I don't usually say more than I mean,"
he said.  "Now we shall never understand each other unless you will
talk quite straight with me."

Alice Deringham had not lost her discretion in her anger, and, since
there was no avoiding the issue, decided it would be preferable to
blame him for the lesser of his offences.

"Then," she said coldly, "it was somewhat difficult to appreciate the
humour of the trick you played upon us.  You may, however, have
different notions as to what is tasteful in the Colonies."

Again the darker colour showed in Alton's bronzed forehead, but he
spoke gravely.  "I don't think that's quite fair," he said.  "I am what
the Almighty made me, a plain bushman who has had to work too hard for
his living to learn to put things nicely, but I never came down to any
meanness that would hurt a woman, and there isn't any need for a dainty
English lady to point out the difference between herself and me."

"There may be less difference than you seem to fancy," said the girl a
trifle maliciously.  "You are Alton of Carnaby."

"Pshaw!" said the man with a little gesture of pride and impatience,
which Miss Deringham was forced to admit became him.  "I'm Alton of
Somasco, and nobody gave it me.  I won it from the lake and the forest
that comes crawling in again--but I'm getting off the trail.  I didn't
know your father was coming here, and hadn't any notion who you were."

"That's curious, because he wrote to tell you," said the girl.

Alton flushed a little, for he was somewhat quick-tempered, and too
proud to be otherwise than a veracious man.  "Well," he said slowly, "I
have the honour of telling you I didn't get the letter.  There's a
place called Somasco down in Vancouver."

Miss Deringham decided that she had ventured sufficiently far.  Indeed,
on subsequent reflection she was forced to admit that she had gone
farther than was quite seemly, which somewhat naturally increased her
displeasure against the man.  In the meanwhile she, however, made a
little gracious gesture.  "Then I don't think the explanation was
necessary," she said.

Alton laughed a little, and held out his hand.  "Do you know I'm
thankful that's over once for all, and now we can be friends," he said.
"There are lots of things I can show you in the valley, and a good deal
more that you can teach me."

Alice Deringham could not afterwards quite decide why she shook hands
with him, for she had no intention of teaching him anything, just then;
but she did, and felt as the hard brown fingers closed upon her own
that the friendship of this curious man could in time of necessity be
relied upon.  In any case, and obeying some impulse, she shook off her
chilliness, and asking questions about the district evinced a gracious
interest in all he had to tell her, while presently induced by his
naive frankness she smiled at him as she noticed him regarding her
gravely.

"I presume a dress of this kind is scarcely suitable for the bush," she
said.

Alton laughed.  "I wasn't looking at the dress, though it's a very
pretty one," he said.  "You see, except my mother and Miss Townshead, I
have never spoken to an English lady."

"But you must have been very young when you lost her," said the girl.

Alton took off his hat, and pointed to a hillside shrouded with sombre
firs.  "Yes," he said quietly.  "She sleeps up there, and in a little
while my father followed her.  He was lonely without her, and because
of what she had done for him, proud of his countrywomen.  He often used
to talk about them."

"And," said Alice Deringham, "you wondered if he was mistaken?"

Alton made a little gesture that in a curious fashion implied a wide
chivalric faith.  "No," he said gravely, "I believe he was right."

Miss Deringham felt a faint warmth creep into her cheek, and it was not
because the speech might have been deemed a personal compliment.  She
saw a little deeper into the man's nature than that, and, if she had
not, the tone of grave respect would have enlightened her.  Then she
turned with a little sense of relief as Deringham came out upon the
verandah.

"I am pleased to see you and Mr. Alton have made friends," he said, and
the girl, who noticed a faint twinkle in his eyes, turned quietly and
looked down the valley as she remembered one odious clause in the will.

She rose early next morning, and flinging the window open to let in the
glorious freshness heard a commotion below, while as she wondered as to
the cause of it several pairs of old boots went gyrating over the
balustrade of the verandah.  A dilapidated saddle followed them, and
then a cloud of dust rolled up, while she saw the new owner of Carnaby
appear somewhat scantily attired out of the midst of it.  He had a
brush in one hand and seemed disturbed about something.

"Where the brimstone does Mrs. Margery keep the scrubbing soap?" he
said.

Nobody answered him, and he moved back into the dust, while Seaforth
was coming up the stairway carrying a mop and pail when a big empty
oilcan smote him upon the chest.  He dropped the pail and leaned a
moment, gasping and dripping, against the balustrade.

"You might notice where you're throwing things," he said.

The dust rolled more thickly, and Alton's voice came out of it.  "I
hadn't time to be particular, and a sensible man would have got out of
the way of it.  Don't stand there, anyway, but help me fix this place
fit for a lady before Miss Deringham gets up.  Then you're going
through to the railroad with the new pack-horse to wire for Mrs.
Margery after breakfast."

"I don't think I am," said Seaforth.  "Not on Julius Caesar, anyway.
He will need a little more taming before I'm fit to ride him."

"Then," said Alton, laughing, "I guess you can shove him, because
you'll want a horse to bring up the things you're going to wire
Vancouver for, and Tom's off with the teams up the valley.  Fetch some
more water, and start in with the scrubbing.  I don't want Miss
Deringham to guess we've been doing anything unusual."

"If she doesn't hear you," said Seaforth, "she must be very deaf."

"Now," said Alton regretfully, "I never thought of that.  Sit right
down, Charley, and take your boots off."

"I am going to the well first," said Seaforth, who retired grinning,
and Miss Deringham laughed softly as she heard the cautious movements
of a big barefooted man floundering about clumsily with a brush or mop.

When she came down to breakfast, however, she was a little astonished.
The room was swept, and garnished with cedar sprays, while though it
smelled of some crude soap the aromatic sweetness of balsam was present
too, and there were signs of taste in its decoration and the
disposition of the splendid fruit upon the table.  Alton had not
plucked it all, and the golden apples and velvety peaches lay with
their soft tinting enhanced amidst the leaves.  When he came in, bright
of eye and apparently glowing from a plunge in the river, she glanced
at him with quiet amusement.

"You have been improving the place wonderfully," she said.

"You are pleased with it?" said the rancher, and the girl noticed the
contentment in his eyes when she smiled approvingly.

"I think," she said, "it is very pretty."




CHAPTER VII

ALTON BLUNDERS

Deringham spent several weeks at Somasco without arriving at any
understanding with its owner.  This, however, did not cause him any
great concern, because he had at his doctor's recommendation decided on
a somewhat lengthy absence from England, and found himself regaining
health and vigour with every day he passed in the pleasant valley.  He
was also desirous of gaining time, because he had left negotiations for
the formation of a company to take over an enterprise he was interested
in in train, and, while these could proceed as well without him, a
favourable termination would, by relieving him from immediate financial
anxiety, enable him if it seemed advisable to adopt a firmer tone in
any discussion respecting Carnaby.  Alton had in the meanwhile quietly
avoided the subject.

Affairs were in this position when he sat one evening with his daughter
on the verandah, glancing now and then down the valley.  It was very
still and peaceful, and trails of white mist crept about the pines,
while, though the paling light still lingered high up upon the snow, a
crescent moon was growing into visibility against the steely blueness
behind the eastern shoulder of a hill.  Deringham, however, was
listening for the thud of hoofs, and wondering if the mounted man sent
down to the settlement would bring any letters for him.  His daughter
sat close by him, dreamily watching the darkness roll higher about the
pines.  She had not as yet grown tired of Somasco, and found its owner
an interesting study.  He was of a type that was new to her, and the
girl of a somewhat inquiring disposition.

Presently she turned to her father.  "How long shall we stay here?" she
said.

"I don't know," said Deringham.  "It depends upon the Canadian, and in
the meanwhile I am picking up a good deal of useful information about
the mineral resources of this country.  Alton of Somasco seems to be a
somewhat intelligent man."

"Yes," said the girl thoughtfully.  "It is a little difficult to
dislike him."

"I," said her father, smiling, "do not know that there is any great
necessity, or notice signs of a marked endeavour on your part to do so."

The girl glanced at him inquiringly.  "You mean?" said she.

"Nothing," said Deringham.  "Only the Canadian is also a man.  Well, we
shall be going on to Vancouver presently."

The girl laughed a little.  "That is incontrovertible," she said.  "Why
not go on now?"

"There are reasons," said Deringham somewhat gravely.  "For one thing I
hope to be in a position shortly to make terms with him."

"But Carnaby is his," said the girl.

"Yes," said Deringham, "unless he gives it up."

His daughter appeared thoughtful.  "I scarcely think he will!"

Deringham laughed a little.  "It might be possible to find means of
inducing him."

Alice Deringham shook her head.  "From what I have seen of Mr. Alton, I
fancy it would be difficult."

"Well," said Deringham dryly, "we shall see."

He had scarcely spoken when a soft drumming sound came out of the
stillness.  It grew steadily louder, was lost in the roar of the river,
and rose more distinct again, while the girl, who realized that a man
was riding up the valley, wondered with unusual curiosity what news he
would bring.  She also grew impatient, for that staccato drumming
seemed to jar upon the harmonies of the evening, and she walked to the
balustrade when the sound swelled into a thudding beat of hoofs.  The
man was crossing the oatfield at a gallop now.  Then the sound rose
muffled out of the gloom of the orchard the trail ran through, and she
felt curiously expectant when once more the rider swung out into the
shadowy clearing.  She afterwards remembered the vague apprehension
with which she watched and listened, for it seemed to her that some
intangible peril was drawing nearer with the galloping horse.  A minute
or two later Seaforth came into the verandah with a packet of letters
in his hand.

"There are several for you, sir," he said, handing Deringham some of
them, and passed into the house shouting, "Harry."

Deringham glanced through his budget, and his face changed a little,
while his daughter noticed the set of his lips and the clustering
wrinkles about his eyes.  There was a telegraphic message, but he put
it aside and opened a bulky envelope whose stamp he recognized.  Then
the missive he took out rustled a little in his hand as he read:

"I'm afraid negotiations are not progressing well.  Mortimer, as you
will see by enclosed copies of correspondence, demands a revaluation
which would not be advisable before he will underwrite any of the
capital."

Deringham laid down the letter, and his daughter turned suddenly at his
exclamation.  "The fools should have bought him off!" he said.

Then he took up the telegraphic message and read, "Scheme
impracticable.  Cannot compromise with Mortimer.  Harper and the
Syndicate against us.  Details following."

Deringham said nothing, but sat staring before him with a face that
seemed to have grown suddenly grey and haggard, until his daughter
spoke to him.

"Have you had bad news, father?" she said.

The man, who had been sitting so that the light which shone out from
the room behind them fell upon him, moved.  "I have," he said.  "This
message informs me that at least ten thousand pounds have been
virtually taken out of my pocket.  As it happened, I wanted the money
somewhat badly."

He rose, and entering the house met Alton coming out of it.  The
Canadian brushed past him with a letter in his hand, and Deringham
turned a moment and looked after him.  The financier's face was not
pleasant just then, and there was a curious glitter in his eyes, while
Seaforth, who was following his comrade, stared at him as he passed,
and came up with Alton on the verandah.

"What has gone wrong with Deringham?" he said.

"I don't know," said Alton lightly.  "Do you think anything has?"

"That," said Seaforth, "is what I am asking you.  He looked condemnably
ugly just now.  One could have fancied that he contemplated killing
somebody."

Alton laughed.  "Got a little business trip up, I expect," he said, and
moved forward as he spoke.  "Here's word from Mrs. Jimmy.  She wants to
know when I'm going to begin.  Women are very persistent, Miss
Deringham, but this one has some reason."

"They usually have," said the girl.  "I do not, however, know Mrs.
Jimmy."

"Of course," said Alton, smiling.  "Still, I expect you'll see her up
here presently."

It was a day or two later when Alton returned to the topic of Mrs.
Jimmy, and he was then kneeling in the stern of a canoe which slid with
a swift smoothness down the placid lake as he dipped the glistening
paddle.  Miss Deringham was seated forward on a pile of cedar-twigs,
with a wet line in her fingers, and in no way disturbed by the fact
that she had caught nothing.  Such expeditions had become somewhat
frequent of late, and though the girl sometimes wondered what she found
to please her in the company and conversation of the bush rancher, the
fact that she usually went with him when he crossed the lake remained.

"I have seen that trail of smoke up there before.  Where does it come
from?" she said languidly, pointing to a distant film of vapour that
drifted in a faint blue wreath along the slope of a hill.

"That," said Alton, "is the Tyee mine."

"I have heard of it.  They find silver there?"

"Yes," said Alton dryly.  "They find a little."

"There is silver in those mountains, then?" said Miss Deringham.

Alton nodded.  "Lots of it.  Still, it costs a good deal to get out,
and then it doesn't pay for the mining occasionally.  That's the
trouble with the Tyee."

"Still, it must pay somebody, or they would not go on," said Miss
Deringham.

Alton laughed a little.  "Oh, yes," he said dryly.  "It pays a man
called Hallam and some others of his kind who got up the company.
Still, sometime and somehow, I think he will be sorry he stole poor
folks' money."

"You," said Miss Deringham, smiling, "are an optimist, then?"

Alton gravely glanced about him, and the girl fancied she understood
him as she followed his gaze from snowpeak down the great pine-shrouded
hillside to the river frothing in the valley.  "I don't know, but one
feels there's something beyond all that," he said.  "It didn't come
there by accident, and it has all its work to do.  Sun and frost and
sliding snow grinding up the hillside very sure and slow, and the river
sweeping what it gets from them way down the valley to spread new
wheatfields out into the sea."

"But," said Miss Deringham, smiling, "we are speaking of men, and I
don't quite see the connection."

"Well," said Alton, "they have their place in the great machine too,
and must work like the rest, and do something to make it more fruitful,
in return for the food the good earth gives them."

"A good many men don't seem to realize the obligation," said Miss
Deringham.

Alton nodded.  "No, but I can't help thinking they'll be dealt with
somehow.  They're just stealing from the others."

"You are a socialist, then?"

"No," said Alton, "I don't think I am.  It seems to me that every man
is entitled to all the dollars he can get by working for them honestly,
and there's a place somewhere in this great world for him, if he has
the grit to get up and look for it as he was meant to do, but it has no
use for the man who wants to sit still and think about his dinner while
other folks work for him."

"Still, he may have earned the right to do so," said the girl.

"Well," said Alton grimly, "most of that kind I've met with seemed to
have stolen it, and one or two of them had, for a few thousand dollars,
sent good men to their death.  When you've seen your comrades sickening
and starving on rotten provisions in the snow, or washed out down the
valley by the bursting of a dam that was only built to sell, you begin
to wonder whether it would be wrong to wipe out some of that crowd with
the rifle."

The veins swelled on his forehead, and there was a smouldering fire in
his eyes, while the girl suspected he was alluding to some especial
member of the class, and noticed that his eye seemed to follow the
smoke of the Tyee.  Then he laughed.

"I guess I'm talking nonsense again, but there's a little behind it,
and I feel that you can pick it out," he said.  "Now I'm not good at
amusing women, but you and Mrs. Jimmy seem to understand me."

"Who is Mrs. Jimmy, and does her husband belong to Somasco?" asked the
girl, with a smile.

Alton laid down the paddle, and took off his hat.  "Jimmy," he said
solemnly, "is dead.  He was my partner, and his wife is a friend of
mine.  She was in some ways very like you."

"They had a ranch up here?" said Miss Deringham languidly.

"No," said Alton.  "It wasn't often they had ten dollars.  She was a
lady bar-keep down in Vancouver before she married Jimmy.  He was a
trail-chopper in this country.  I don't know what he was in the old
one."

"And," said Miss Deringham, "Mrs. Jimmy resembles me?"

She regretted it next moment when she saw Alton's face.  It expressed
subdued surprise, and the girl felt irritated with herself.

"Yes," he said gravely.  "Human nature's much the same at the bottom,
whether it has gold on the top of it or the dints of the hammer, and
Mrs. Jimmy was good all through."

"That," said Miss Deringham, "is distinctly pretty."

"Well," said Alton smiling, "I didn't mean it that way.  Work was
scarce in the province, and I'd lost my cattle when Jimmy went up with
me into the ranges to look for silver.  He brought his wife along,
because he had no dollars or anywhere to leave her, and it was a mighty
tough place for a woman where we camped under the big glacier.  We
stayed right there most of the winter.  There was only frost and snow,
and the wind that whirled it about the pines, and, until it froze up,
we lived a good deal on salmon from the river.  They were dead when we
got them, and some of them rotten."

Miss Deringham shivered.  "And when the river froze?" she said.

"Then," said Alton gravely, "there were days when we lived on nothing,
and worked until we couldn't hold the pick to keep from thinking.
Still, we got a deer now and then, and we had a very little flour.  It
was mouldy when we bought it, but we hadn't dollars enough for anything
better.  Mrs. Jimmy got sick and thin, but she never grumbled, and was
always waiting bright and smiling when we crawled back into the shanty.
Anyway, we found no silver that would pay for the getting, though we
knew it was there."

"How did you know that?" said Miss Deringham.

"Well," said Alton, "a Siwash told us something.  He crawled in
starving one day, and though we hadn't much over we fed him.  For
another thing we felt it in us that we were on the right trail."

"That," said the girl, "does not sound possible."

Alton nodded.  "No," he said.  "Still, one gets taught up there in the
bush that there's more in a man than what some folks think of as his
reason.  Well, we made a tough fight, and were beaten."

Miss Deringham glanced at him covertly, and noticing his quiet, bronzed
face, steady eyes, and big brown hands, felt that the struggle had been
very grim and stubborn.  "So you gave it up?" she said.

"Yes," said Alton, "for a time, and I had my hands full with other
things when Jimmy went back again.  He had piled up a few dollars and
left the woman behind him.  He took the trail with a good outfit and a
pack-horse, but he didn't come down again, and when Mrs. Jimmy got
anxious I went up to look for him.  It was a good while before I found
him sitting under a pine, and he had found the silver, though it wasn't
much use to him."

"Was it a rich vein?" said the girl.

"Yes," said Alton solemnly, "I think it was, from the specimens he had
brought along, but, and it's difficult sometimes to see why things
should happen that way, he couldn't tell me where it was.  Jimmy was
dead, you see."

The girl shivered visibly.  "It must have been horrible."

"No," said Alton gravely.  "He was sitting there very quiet in the snow
with his hand frozen on the rifle, and there was a big dead panther not
far away; but I was more sorry for Mrs. Jimmy than I was for him.
Jimmy hadn't always been a trail-chopper, and one could see he had been
carrying a heavy load he brought out from the old country.  I think he
was tired."

"And the silver still lies hidden up there?" said Miss Deringham.

Alton nodded.  "Yes," he said.  "I've hunted for it twice, but couldn't
find Jimmy's trail.  By and by, and because the woman wants it, I'm
going back again."

"But it would belong to anybody who found it now," said Miss Deringham.

"No," said Alton quietly.  "A half of what I get there belongs to Mrs.
Jimmy.  The dead man has a claim."

"I am not sure that most men would think so.  You are generous," said
the girl.

"No," said Alton.  "I'm just where I can, and it hurts me to owe
anybody anything, whether it's a favour, or the other thing."

Miss Deringham understood him, and reflected as she glanced at him out
of the corners of her eyes that her father would do well if he dealt
openly with this man.  She fancied he could be remorseless in a
reckoning, and she had now and then of late had unpleasant suspicions
respecting Deringham's intentions concerning him.

Alton took up the paddle, and the pair found Deringham waiting them
when they landed.  They crossed the valley together, and the girl, who
had seen little of industrial activity, became interested when at her
father's desire they followed Alton into the mill.  A cloud of pungent
smoke hung about it, and the steady pounding of an engine jarred
through the monotone of the river, which was low just then, while there
was a pleasant fragrance in the open-sided building where brawny men
moved amidst the whirling dust with the precision of the machines they
handled.  Alice Deringham could see with untrained eyes that there was
no waste of effort here.  The great logs that slid in at one end passed
straight forward over the rattling rollers, and made no deviation until
they went out as planking.  Silent men and whirring saws, whose
strident scream changed to a deeper humming as they rent into the great
redwood trunks, alike did their work with swift efficiency, and once
more the girl glanced with a little wonder at the man who had organized
it all.

"This appears to be a remarkably well-laid-out mill," said her father.

Alton laughed a little.  "We shall have a bigger one by and by," he
said.  "The only thing I'm proud of is the planer, and she cost me a
pile of dollars.  I had to cut down all round before I could buy the
thing, and then I pulled her all to pieces, and fixed her up myself."

Alice Deringham followed her father towards a big, humming machine that
was tearing off the surface of the planks fed to it and flinging them
out polished into whiteness.  Alton glanced at it admiringly.

"Yes, I'm proud of that," he said.  "It was a tight fit buying her, and
now she's saving me dollars every day."  Then he turned to a stooping
man.  "You're crowding her a little."

Alice Deringham noticed the resentment in the man's face, which was not
a pleasant one, and that, in place of relaxing the pressure, he seemed
to thrust a little more strenuously upon the plank he guided; but that
was all she saw, for the next moment there was a crash and a loud
whirring, and a cloud of woody dust was flung all over her.

Alton sprang forward through it, and a big leather belt suddenly
stopped, but the girl could never clearly remember what happened next,
for the dust still whirled about her.  There, however, appeared to be a
brief altercation, and as Alton moved towards him the other man dropped
his hand to his belt.  Guessing what the action meant, Alice Deringham
shrank back with a little shiver, and her father appeared to grasp the
man's shoulder.  Alton swayed suddenly sideways, and then hurled
himself forward, while next moment two men fell violently against the
wrecked machine.  One of them seemed to be helpless in the grasp of the
other, and staggering clear of the planer they went reeling through the
mill.  Then there was a splash in the river, and Alton returned alone,
breathless and somewhat white in face.

"Sorry, but there was no other way out of it," he said a trifle
hoarsely.  "Now I've got to size up the ruin, if you'll excuse me."

Deringham turned away with his daughter in time to see a dripping
object crawl out on the opposite side of the river.  "Are you still
pleased with your tame bear?" he said ironically.

The girl laughed a little, though her colour was perhaps a trifle
higher than usual.  "There is a good deal of the beast still unsubdued
in him," she said.

Deringham nodded.  "Still, he had some provocation, and I think he was
right.  So far as I could follow the discussion, the other man meant to
question his ability to dismiss him, with the pistol."

Alice Deringham said nothing further upon the subject until Alton
joined them as they sat out on the verandah that night.  "You are not
pleased with me?" he said.

"There is nothing to warrant me telling you so, and I may have been
mistaken," said the girl reflectively.

"No," said Alton, "that's the pity; but couldn't you remember just now
and then that you are friends with me?"

"Things of this kind make it a little difficult," said Miss Deringham.

"Well," said Alton, "that machine cost me twelve months' grim
self-denial, and the fellow broke it out of temper because I spoke to
him."

"It was," said Miss Deringham, "sufficiently exasperating, but was the
rest justifiable because you were a stronger or bolder man than him?"

Alton laughed a little.  "You don't understand.  I did it because I was
afraid," said he.  "Now if I hadn't been, I'd have backed that man
right into the river without touching him."

The girl glanced at him and then lapsed into a ripple of laughter.
"I'm afraid I must give you up," said she.

Just then Deringham came into the verandah, and Alton turned towards
him.  "It's a little difficult to put it as I would like to, but I'm
glad it was you.  You know what I mean."

Deringham appeared a trifle embarrassed.  "I'm not sure that you are
indebted to me at all," he said.  "I only seized his shoulder, and you
would not have expected me to look on?"

Alton shook his head.  "I don't think he would have missed if you
hadn't done it, and I will not forget," he said.  "This thing will
always count for a good deal between you and me."

He went away, and Alice Deringham glanced at her father with a flush in
her face.  "I did not understand before.  The man had a pistol and you
took it from him?"

"No," said Deringham, with a curious little laugh.  "I meant to knock
his arm up, and am not sure that I did it.  It was, considering all
things, a somewhat disinterested action."




CHAPTER VIII

HALLAM'S CONFEDERATE

It was about the middle of the afternoon of the day following Alton's
affray with the workman when the cook came limping into the verandah of
the Somasco ranch, where Deringham leaned, cigar in hand, against a
pillar talking to his daughter.  She lay in a hide chair Alton had
found for her, listening more to the drowsy roar of the river than to
her father, but she lifted her head when the man appeared.  He carried
a tray whereon were displayed a badly dinted metal teapot of
considerable size, two large, flat cakes of bread, a can of condensed
milk, and a saucer swimming with partially melted butter, which had
resolved itself into little lumps of whitish grease and a thin golden
fluid under the afternoon sun.  He laid them on the table, and after
deftly picking out one or two dead flies from the butter turned to the
girl with a grin in which pride was evident, though it was apparently
meant to be deprecatory.

"I guess this is the kind of thing you were used to in the old country,
Miss," he said.  "You have only got to tell me if you would fancy a
piece of cold pork or other fixings."

Alice Deringham dared not glance at her father, who seemed to be gazing
fixedly down the valley, but her lips quivered a little as she turned
towards the man.

"I do not think we shall want anything else," she said with a serenity
that cost her an effort, though it was excellently assumed.

The man limped away with the tray, though he stopped again at the foot
of the stairway.  "If you take a notion of that pork after all, hammer
on the iron roofing sheet there, and I'll bring it right away," he said.

Alice Deringham waited until he was out of sight, and then lay back in
her chair and laughed when her father glanced at her with a little grim
smile.

"Savages, my dear!" he said.  "Still, their intentions are evidently
kindly, which is unfortunate because it involves us in a difficulty."

"A difficulty?"

Deringham nodded.  "I have a suspicion that our estimable kinsman, who
seems to consider that what is good enough for Somasco should content
anybody, might be offended if we slighted his hospitality, and that
teapot apparently contains at least three pints of strong green tea,"
he said.  "I do not know whether you feel equal to consuming half of
it, but if it is the same as I had at breakfast I must be excused.  One
could also fancy from their solidity that those cups had been intended
for breaking stones with."

"I can at least pour the tea over the balustrade," said the girl.  "It
is the bread that presents the difficulty.  It would crumble in your
pocket, and you will presumably have to eat a little to save
appearances."

Deringham made a gesture of resignation.  "On condition that you do as
much.  I am not going to be the only victim, though I fancy you could
not crumble that bread in a stamp battery.  This meal, and what we have
otherwise seen at Somasco, confirms my theory that the folks who make
money in the Colonies could save as much, or more, in England if they
lived in a similar fashion."

"Would it be worth while?" asked the girl with a little smile.

"It is a question of temperament," said Deringham.  "Personally, I do
not think it would.  Indeed, one could fancy that a man of taste would
sooner be interred decently, which is why I will take a very little of
the tea.  You see, our mode of life in England, unfortunately, depends
to some extent upon my retaining the good will of Mr. Alton of Somasco.
He will, however, have to excuse me from tasting his butter."

The girl poured a little of the tea into the cups, and then emptied the
pot over the balustrade, which was, as it happened, a blunder, because
while she endeavoured to crumble a small portion of the bread so as to
convey the impression that she had been eating it, Alton and Seaforth
came into the verandah.

The latter glanced at her, and, for he could not help it, a little
smile flickered in his eyes.

"It is a very long while since I had afternoon tea, and I am not sure
that Harry ever indulged in it in his life," he said.  "I will bring
some more cups if you will give us some."

Deringham looked at his daughter reproachfully, though his eyes
twinkled, and for just a moment a flush crept into the girl's face, but
she laughed as she said, "Then I must trouble to ask the cook for more
water."

Alton hammered upon the suspended iron sheet, and in a minute or two
the cook appeared again with a large plateful of sliced pork which he
laid down before Miss Deringham.

"I was figuring you would change your mind, and if you want any more
you have only to ask for it," he said.

It cost the girl an effort to repress a shiver of disgust, but though
she succeeded Alton saw her face, and she noticed that the bronze grew
a trifle darker in his forehead.  It seemed that he guessed her
thoughts, but the fact that he offered no explanation and made no
excuse for the uninviting fare pleased her.  She fancied she understood
his reticence, and that it became him.

"Take that pork away, and bring more water!" he said, and there was a
faint ring in his voice, as he turned to the cook.

The man, who took up the teapot, shook it, and then, as though still
incredulous, lifted the lid and gazed inside it.

"More water?" he said.

"Yes," said Alton, a trifle harshly.  "Get it right now!"

The man went away, and there was for almost a minute a somewhat
unpleasant silence.  Even Seaforth did not seem to know what to say,
though he felt an absurd desire to laugh, and Alice Deringham was at
once relieved and somewhat astonished when Alton put an end to it by a
whimsical story of a raw Englishman's camp cookery.  Seaforth followed
it with a better one, and the whole four were laughing when the cook
came back again.  He smiled at them reassuringly as he put the teapot
down.

"I guess there's enough this time," he said.  "It's that full I could
scarcely get the lid on."

The tea was strong, and acrid with the sting of the wood smoke, but
there was no avoiding another cupful, and Deringham drank determinedly,
while his daughter felt that she had made full atonement when she set
her cup down half empty.  Then Alton, who explained that he had
something to attend to, went away, and Seaforth smiled at the girl when
Deringham went in for another cigar.

"I wonder if one might venture to congratulate you on your resolution?"
he said.

"If I knew exactly what you meant I could answer more readily," said
Alice Deringham.

"Well," said Seaforth reflectively, "I fancy you do, and, if it's any
comfort to you, I think Harry does too.  He is considerably less of a
fool than folks who do not understand this country might suppose him to
be; but the point is, that if he can prevent it you will not suffer an
infliction of this kind again."

"I wonder why you thought it worth while to tell me," said Alice
Deringham.  "Have I admitted that it was an affliction, or do you
suppose I am very frightened of a little indifferent tea?"

Seaforth laughed.  "I can't fancy you so fond of it as the cook seems
to conclude, and I don't think indifferent was exactly the word.  A
stronger one would have been appropriate.  Still, though I am not sure
that you will understand me, I told you because I felt it was due to
Harry.  You see, his attitude was really the correct one, and taking
him all round I am rather proud of him."

"Hasn't that an appearance of unnecessary patronage?" asked Miss
Deringham, who was slightly nettled.

Seaforth nodded.  "It has," he said.  "Only that the feeling is shared
by everybody in this district, it would be sheer presumption.  Good
wine, you know, needs no bush."

He went away because he had a suspicion that Alton would be wanting
him, which was borne out when he found his comrade saddling a horse.

"Where are you going, Harry?  We are not half way through with the
sawlogs," he said.

"No," said Alton dryly.  "Still, if you work hard enough, you and Tom
should get them into the water before it's dark to-night.  I'm going
right down to Horton's."

Seaforth laughed.  "I thought you would.  Horton has, however, as much
taste in china as the average mule.  Don't leave it to him."

"How did you guess that?" and Alton stared at him.

"That," said Seaforth, "was delightfully simple.  It is a little more
difficult to decide what Miss Deringham, who is a quick-witted young
woman, did with the tea.  As you are quite aware, she did not drink it.
Still, that is not the question.  I'll write you out a little list of
what is wanted--I used to know a little about china once, you see, and
you tell Horton to send it on to Vancouver.  How much would you care to
spend, Harry?"

"Just whatever is necessary, but get the best," said Alton.  "Write
another list of cakes and jellies and things of that kind, too.  Put
down plenty."

Seaforth returned by the time the horse was saddled, with an envelope,
and Alton, who took it, rode out at a gallop, for it was a long way to
the settlement, and the evenings at the ranch had of late become very
pleasant to him.  He did not wish to lose a minute of one of them.  He
drew bridle, however, when he came up with two men standing in the
narrow trail, one of whom signed to him.  He was a small rancher, but
it was not until the impatient horse plunged that Alton recognized the
other, who moved aside, as the man he had thrown into the river.  The
rancher saw the glance that passed between them.

"Hallo!" he said.  "Then you two had trouble when you split?  Now,
Damer was telling me he'd got kind of tired of saw milling."

Alton laughed.  "That's quite likely," he said.  "He showed it by
breaking up my planer in a fit of temper, and I fired him."

Then he touched the horse with his heel, and Damer's gaze grew venomous
as he watched him ride away down the shadowy trail.  The rancher
evidently noticed it.

"Now I begin to understand how you got your jacket tore up and that
lump on your forehead," he said.  "I wasn't quite sure about your tale,
anyway, and if Harry fired you it was for something mean.  You'll get
no horse from me."

The other man said nothing as he turned away, but his face was not
pleasant as he plodded down the trail, and those words of Alton's were
to cost him dear, for if Damer had obtained the horse he wanted to
carry him to the railroad he would in all probability have left the
country, which would have prevented a good deal of trouble.  As it was,
however, he restrapped the roll of blankets on his back, and trudged on
with bitterness in his heart under the heat of the afternoon.  He had
when he left the Somasco mill headed in the direction of the Tyee mine,
and passed the night in the woods; but with the morning reflection
came, and he had doubled on his trail and was then making for the
railroad, stiff with fatigue.  Each time he stumbled into a rut and the
jolt shook him he remembered his last grievance against Alton, who had
sent him on foot, and his frame of mind was not an enviable one when he
limped into sight of the settlement as dusk was closing down.

He had made a long journey that day, and a good deal depended on the
fact that he was weary and his boots galled him, because it had been
his intention to push on to a ranch beyond the settlement before he
slept, and hire a horse there.  Damer was not especially sensitive, but
he felt no great desire to encounter the badinage of the men generally
to be found about the store, who, he surmised, would have heard by this
time what had happened at the Somasco mill.  Still, he was hungry and
weary, and stopped a moment when he caught a blink of light between the
trees.  The bush behind him was very black and still, the dampness of
the dew was on his dusty garments, and he shivered a little in the
faint cold breeze that came down from the snow.  Then more lights
twinkled into brightness, a cheerful murmur of voices and a burst of
laughter came out of the shadows, and the glow that broke out from the
windows of Horton's store seemed curiously inviting.  Damer, however,
dallied still, and fumbled for his tobacco.  He would sit down where he
was and smoke, he said, and then attempt that last toilsome league.

As it happened, he could not find the tobacco, and having a hazy
recollection of laying it on the ground the last time he filled his
pipe, he shook his aching shoulders and trudged on.  The loss of the
tobacco decided him, and with a malediction on Alton he made for
Horton's.  It was also a fateful decision with far-reaching results he
made just then.  Supper had long been cleared away when he entered the
general room of the hotel, and then stopped a moment with his hand on
the door, for the one man who sat under the big lamp was the last
person he desired to meet.  He had, however, some papers spread out in
front of him, and Damer decided to slip away quietly, but as he moved
the blankets on his shoulders struck the door, which rattled, and the
man looked up sharply.  He had a fleshy face, and black beady eyes,
which he fixed on Damer, who stood still, with a little, unpleasant
smile.

"Come right in!" he said.

Damer smothered an anathema as he recognized the command in the tone.
"No," he said.  "If you don't mind, Mr. Hallam, I'll be getting on
again."

"Come in!" said Hallam, a trifle more sharply, but for just a moment
Damer remained motionless.  A few steps would take him down the
verandah stairway, and then the shadowy bush lay before him.  Had he
had a horse, he would have obeyed the impulse which prompted him to
avoid the encounter; but, as it happened, owing to the fact that Alton
had met the rancher who would otherwise have lent him one, he had none.
So with evident unwillingness he came slowly forward, and dropping his
bundles on the floor flung himself into a chair.

"Well," he said, "I'm here."

Hallam, who had been watching him, nodded reflectively.  "I guess you
didn't expect to find me, or you wouldn't have come," he said.  "Where
were you going?"

"To the railroad," said Damer.  "Out of the country!"

"Without telling me?  That was kind of foolish of you.  Still, you
haven't much sense, anyway.  You had quite a well-paid job at Somasco."

"Well," said Damer dryly, "I haven't got it now."

Hallam laughed, though the glint in his eyes did not express good will.
"You have got a temper that will be the ruin of you, and don't know
when a man's too big for you, while, now I come to look at you, there's
a lump on your forehead that makes the thing quite plain.  You have
been fooling with Alton, and he has 'most pounded the life out of you.
Still, what do you want to leave the country for, anyway?"

Damer set his lips, and drummed with his fingers on the table.  Then he
made a little deprecatory gesture, and glanced at Hallam.

"You'll hear it all by and by, but there's one point where you're
wrong," he said.  "Now, I'm not scared too easily, but I kind of feel
it in me I'll make nothing but trouble for myself by worrying Alton.
Still, it's not the man himself I'm afraid of.  I've met tougher ones,
and come out ahead of them."

Hallam sat silent a moment, for he knew the prospectors and survey
packers who passed their lives amidst the desolate ranges and in the
shadowy bush and their superstitions.

"You have had trouble with him before?" he said.

"Yes," said Damer, "I have.  He cut my partner down with an axe back
there in Washington.  It was in the big rush in the Baker foothills,
and we had a hard crowd standing in with us; but I had to pull out, and
Alton and another man made most of five thousand dollars out of the
claim I left."

"The Bluebird?" said Hallam reflectively.  "I remember that rush.
Alton did himself well.  Wasn't there a man called Nailer mixed up in
the affair?"

"There was," said Damer, who seemed to shiver a little.  "He was my
partner.  We'd have had the claim, and Alton wouldn't have worried
anybody again, if Nailer had kept his nerve that night.  Something went
wrong with the spring of his Winchester.--and Alton didn't give him
another chance."

The silence that followed was, somewhat impressive.  Hallam was trying
to remember what he had read about the affray in question in a Tacoma
paper, while Damer once more saw in fancy a man spring half-dressed
through the wisp of smoke that drifted about a little tent.  He
remembered with an unpleasant distinctness the crash of the rifle shot
that rang amidst the shadowy pines, and the grim face of the man who
whirled an axe that glinted in the moonlight about his head.  He saw
the flash of its descent--and then brushing the memories from him
stretched out a hand that shook a little towards the whisky on the
table.

"Well," he said, "I owe Alton a good deal, and that's why I went up to
Somasco when you told me, but he has been too much for me again, and
now I feel it in me that if I'm wise I'll let that man alone."

He drank a little whisky, and sat still, staring vacantly before him
with a vague apprehension in his eyes, while the strained tenseness of
his expression and attitude was not without its effect on Hallam, and
it was unfortunate he did not yield to the impulse which prompted him
to let Damer go.  He, however, shook off the fancy with a little,
impatient laugh.

"It's not going to suit me to have you slipping out of the country," he
said.  "I want you right here, though it would be quite easy to find a
man with twice the grit you have in you.  You let Alton whip you off
your claim in Washington, and--for I've a notion of what has
happened--'most pound the head off you yesterday.  Now you want to
light out, leaving him to laugh at you?"

Damer flushed a little, and a look of vindictive malice crept into his
eyes as he rose.

"That's about enough!" he said.  "You're quite a different man from
Alton.  I'm going on."

"Sit down!" said Hallam sharply.  "I'm quite as dangerous to you.  Take
some more whisky, and listen to me, though I didn't think it would be
necessary to go into the thing again.  I was with the men who found
Gordon at the bottom of his shaft on the Quatchigan."

Damer appeared irresolute, but he sat down.  "Nobody knows how he got
there."

"No?  Well, I have a notion, and I guess Tom Winstanley and one other
man could tell."

"Winstanley's dead."

Hallam laughed.  "Still, the other man is on my pay-roll, but where you
can't get at him unless I want you to.  Now, are you going to gain
anything by kicking against me?"

Damer was evidently astonished, and sat for almost a minute as though
lost in reflection.  Then he made a little gesture as one who abandons
a struggle.

"I guess that takes me.  What do you want?" he said.

"Nothing very much in the meanwhile.  They'll start you rock-drilling
at the Tyee, but it's quite likely I'll send you up into the ranges
prospecting by and by.  Still, I don't want any of the folks down here
to know you're with me, and you'll start out by the railroad trail
to-morrow, and wait at the lake until I come up with you.  There's
somebody coming now!"

Damer moved abruptly, for there was a step on the stairway, and as he
reached the verandah a man brushed past him.  He stopped, and for a
moment Damer and Alton stood face to face.  The latter, however, passed
on, and swept his glance round the room, seeing only a man he did not
recognize sitting at the opposite end with his back to him.  Then he
swung round again, and went down the stairway shouting, "Horton!" until
a man came out from a shed at the back of the store.

"Well," he said, "I'm here.  You needn't raise the whole place, Harry."

Alton laughed.  "I've been up to Grantly's, and he's going in to the
railroad to-morrow.  You can send that order for the crockery along
with him.  Dollars are no object so long as it's pretty.  The tea is to
be the best they keep in Vancouver, too."

He swung himself into the saddle, and shook the bridle, while Damer
leaned on the verandah balustrade gazing up the dusky trail he had
taken until the last faint beat of horsehoofs sank into the silence of
the bush.  It was now very black and solemn, but away beyond it the
snow still shone faintly cold and white against the sky, and once more
Damer shivered a little as he turned towards the lighted store.  He had
meant to leave the country, but fate had been too strong for him, and
remembering what Hallam had told him about the prospecting he wondered
if he and Alton would meet again under that cold gleam of snow amidst
the great desolation of the ranges.




CHAPTER IX

MISS DERINGHAM FEELS SLIGHTED

The morning was still and almost unpleasantly warm, but Miss Deringham
looked very fresh and cool in her long white dress as she lay in a
deerhide chair on the verandah of the Somasco ranch.  She had hung her
hat on the back of the chair, and a shaft of sunlight called up an
answering brightness from the coils of lustrous hair.  One foot in the
scantiest form of slipper rested on the lowest rail of the balustrade,
and she had slightly curled herself up in the chair in a fashion which
implied a languid content with her surroundings, and that there was no
longer any need for ceremony between herself and her companion.  It is
possible that Miss Deringham was aware of this, even if she had not
intended to convey that impression.

Alton, who now wore a new jean jacket buttoned right up to the neck,
leaned against a pillar, answering the questions of the girl, who
glanced at him with a smile occasionally.  He had, as usual, a good
deal to do that day, and now and then turned his eyes towards the sun,
as though noticing its height above the cedars, which did not, of
course, escape Miss Deringham's attention.  Still, he lingered upon the
verandah, and what she deduced from this was not unpleasant to the
girl.  Though it still returned at increasing intervals, she had almost
forgotten her antipathy to the man, and the fact that he was rapidly
yielding to her refining and sometimes chastening influence was
indirectly flattering.  Miss Deringham experienced the more
gratification in using it because he was quick-witted, and a veiled
rebuke would bring a little darker colour into his sun-darkened face,
and she could forgive his offences, which were indeed not frequent, for
the sake of his penitence.

"You have been very patient," she said at length.

"No," said Alton with a twinkle in his eyes, "I don't think that is a
thing anybody could bring up against me."

"Still," said the girl, "you have been an hour here talking to me, when
you must have been dying to get away."

Alton laughed, and Miss Deringham found something pleasant in his naive
directness.  "Now, that's not fair.  If I had been I should have gone,"
said he.  "It would please me to stay right here and talk to you all
day."

Miss Deringham shook her head reproachfully.  "One should imply such
things and not put them into words.  Still, I scarcely think you will
much longer have an opportunity.  We are going on to Vancouver very
shortly."

Alton's face grew clouded.  "Why?" he said.

The girl laughed softly.  "We have inconvenienced Mrs. Margery a good
deal already, and it is evident that we cannot stay here for ever."

Alton moved abruptly, and his companion fancied she heard a stifled
sigh.  "No," he said gravely.  "It's a pity; but you could wait for
another month or two."

Alice Deringham smiled a little.  "You and Charley will miss us, then?"

Alton nodded gravely, but there was a subdued brightness in his eyes,
and the girl wished he would open them fully.  She fancied he was
putting considerable restraint upon himself.  "I don't know about
Charley.  He can talk better than I can for himself, but I shall miss
you all the time," he said.  "This has been a revelation to me, and I
feel that it is good for me to talk to you.  Then, before you came I
had a kind of bitter feeling against all my father's folks in England.
I figured they were wrapped up in their cast-iron pride, and ready to
trample on anybody who got in their way; but you have started me
thinking differently, and it seems my duty to know more of them.  After
all, I am an Alton of Carnaby."

The girl smiled again.  "You fancy you may have been wrong?"

The man's face flushed a little, and there was once more evidence of
the self-restraint.  "Yes," he said simply.  "I know I was a fool."

He might have said a good deal more, and lessened the effect, for Miss
Deringham had seen his face and read the respect in it.  Its sincerity
touched her, and she felt with a vague uneasiness that it would not be
pleasant to face his contempt if he found it misplaced.

"And yet you take your father's part?" he said.

"Of course," said Alton simply.  "What would any son do?  But it seems
to me there might be a little allowance for my grandfather, too, and I
think he and my father have fixed up that quarrel long ago."

"They are both dead," said the girl with a little curiosity.

"Yes," said Alton, "and they kept their word, and died unyielding.
Well, I think they were each right from their way of looking at the
thing, and that being so they could only do what they did, and would
respect each other for it when they meet where the long trail ends.  My
father was right in holding to the woman who loved him, and I think
Tristan Alton knew it when he left Carnaby to me."

Miss Deringham seemed thoughtful.  The man's grim code of honour,
inflexible as it was primitive, caused her, for no apparent reason,
indefinite misgivings, and she made a little gesture of weariness.  "I
think," she said, "it would be better if we did not talk of Carnaby,
and I was wondering if it would be possible to catch a trout if there
is a little more wind presently."

This was scarcely a correct rendering of her thoughts, for she was in
reality desirous of ascertaining whether the man would, to afford her
pleasure, thrust his work aside.

"Well," he said eagerly, "I shouldn't wonder if it would.  Now, there's
the planer to fix up, but that could wait a little, and--but here's
someone coming!"

Miss Deringham was conscious of a trace of annoyance when a girl rode
out of the orchard on a wiry little pony.  She was dressed neatly and
rode well, though the somewhat scanty skirt was evidently not the work
of a habitmaker and had seen lengthy service, while the plain straw hat
could not at the limit have cost more than a dollar; nor did she wear
any gloves, and her hands were brown, while her face betokened exposure
to frost and wind and sun.  It was, however, a comely face, and Miss
Deringham noticed that the girl carried herself gracefully.  It was
also curious that she was not wholly pleased when Alton went forward to
greet the newcomer with his hat in his hand, and, she fancied, offered
more assistance than was absolutely necessary in helping her down.
Then they entered the verandah together, and Alice Deringham smiled in
a fashion which did not pledge her to any extreme good-will when Alton
presented the stranger.

"Miss Townshead, from the ranch back yonder," he said.

Miss Deringham said something of no importance, and waited with
slightly unusual curiosity for the girl's answer, which somewhat
astonished her.  The voice was nicely modulated, and the intonation
free from Western harshness and unmistakably English.

"You will come over and see us.  It is a long time since we had a visit
from anybody from England," she said.  "Are you pleased with this
country?"

Miss Deringham glanced at Alton.  "I grow almost enthusiastic about it
at times," she said.  "Its inhabitants are also especially kind."

The man did not, however, respond as he might have done.  "It's a
tolerably good country," he said gravely, and then glanced at the
stranger.  "Nothing wrong at the ranch, I hope, Miss Nellie?"

"No,", said the girl.  "We have, however, heard that Jack is seriously
ill, and I rode over because the spotted steer has broken away, and I
found the trail led into the Somasco valley.  It was one of the beasts
father was sending down to sell."

Alton became suddenly intent.  "Then it has not gone far.  I saw its
trail an hour ago," he said.  "Well, we must head the beast off before
it gets into the thick timber under the range, and there's no time to
lose.  I'll be ready in two minutes.  Would you like to follow with
Charley, Miss Deringham?"

The time had scarcely been exceeded when he led a horse out of the
stable, held his hand out for Miss Townshead to mount by, and then
swung himself to the saddle.  Then he and the girl swung across the
clearing at a gallop, and Alice Deringham endeavoured to assure herself
that she was not angry.  It appeared that her angling was of
considerably less importance than the capture of the steer.

It was possibly for this reason that she was unusually gracious to
Seaforth, who came along just then, and though evidently in some haste,
stopped to talk to her; while when she had promised to accompany him to
witness the chase, and he strode away towards the stable, her father
sauntered out of the house and glanced in her direction whimsically.

"It occurs to me that one of us is responsible for some irregularity in
the work upon this ranch, and that the beast it a trifle uncertain in
his moods," said he.

"It is," said his daughter, "a little difficult to understand you."

Deringham pointed to the two mounted figures just entering the brush,
and the girl fancied that something had ruffled him.  He could be
unpleasant when that happened.

"Alton of Somasco is a somewhat busy man, but both he and his partner
seem to have suspended their energies this morning," he said.  "No
doubt wild-beast taming has its fascination, but one might fancy it was
apt to prove a somewhat disconcerting and perilous amusement."

"Yes?" said the girl in a tone of languid inquiry.

Deringham nodded.  "One can never tell when the beast may revert to his
primitive instincts, and do something unpleasant," he said.  "This one
is also evidently of somewhat uncertain temperament.  We are told that
Una had a lion, but the effect of the story would have been diminished
if it had been recorded that the king of the forest divided his
allegiance."

Miss Deringham was now convinced that her father was not pleased.  "I
have not noticed anything especially leonine about Mr. Seaforth," she
said.

"No," said Deringham dryly.  "The Honourable Charley appears to be an
admirable young man of the domestic feline species, but I don't know of
any reason that would make it advisable to waste powder and shot over
him."

Miss Deringham rose languidly, but her father felt he had gone as far
as was desirable, and went back to grapple with a financial difficulty
from which he could see only one escape, while she rode away with
Seaforth, who led out the horse reserved for her use.  Alice Deringham
could ride, but when they left the clearing and plunged into the bush
she found that all she had been taught in England was not much use in
British Columbia.  There was no perceptible trail, and the horses
floundered round great fallen trees, and plunged smashing through
thickets of black raspberry and barberry.  In places their flanks were
brushed by tall, black-stemmed fern, and where the forest was more open
treacherous gravel slipped beneath the hoofs that sank from sight
amidst the blood-red clusters of the little wineberry.  After an hour
of it the girl was shaken and breathless, and she contemplated her
habit somewhat ruefully when Seaforth drew bridle.  Somewhere far up on
a hill shoulder there was a smashing in the bush.

"Are you sure you have not lost the way?" she said.  "It seems
impossible for horses or cattle to get through this forest."

Seaforth laughed.  "The bush is really thin here," he said.  "Anybody
used to it could get through at a gallop, while a good bushman could
scarcely make five miles a day walking where it's tolerably thick.  I
wonder if you know that the ox was originally a denizen of the bush.  I
didn't until Harry told me.  It always seemed to me a tranquil beast
adapted for sober locomotion on nice green grass."

"And isn't it?" said the girl with indifference in her eyes.  "Mr.
Alton is an authority on cattle?"

"Harry," said Seaforth, smiling, "is, although one might not always
fancy so, a complete encyclopaedia on everything useful.  Anyway, from
the sound up yonder you will presently see some of the primitive habits
of the genus _bos_, and the spectacle may be the more interesting
because the beast will if possible head away up that valley into
fastnesses where only a prehistoric man with a tail could follow it."

Alice Deringham said nothing further and was glad of the rest.  They
had pulled their horses up on the slope of a hill which formed one side
of a hollow out of which several valleys opened.  There were great
trees about them, and it was only here and there a ray of sunlight
pierced the dim green shadow, while below them a stream went frothing
down a miniature canon whose banks were cumbered by fallen timber.  It
was, the girl fancied, an especially difficult place for a horseman to
pick his way through.

Meanwhile the sound above grew louder, and presently an object
apparently travelling like a thunderbolt came out of the shadow.  It
was, notwithstanding the speed it made, gambolling playfully, with head
tossed sideways and tail in the air, and when Miss Deringham fancied it
must turn aside for a tangled brake, went smashing straight through it.
As it emerged with an exultant flourish of head and tail two other
objects became visible behind it, and Seaforth pushed forward when the
mounted figures came sweeping down the mountain side.  Here and there
they swung wide round a fallen tree, but they rode straight through
raspberry-canes and breast-high fern, and Alice Deringham wondered when
she saw that one of them was a girl.  She had left her hat somewhere in
the bush, her hair streamed about her, the skirt was blown aside; but
she held on with set lips and two vivid spots of colour in her
warm-tinted face, a length or two behind her companion.  He was riding
hard, and there was a red smear across his face where a branch had
smote him.

Miss Deringham turned to watch them, realizing that whatever the steer
risked, its pursuers were in peril of life and limb.  Sometimes one
horse rose above fern and thicket, or twisted, apparently with the
sinuosity of a snake, in and out amidst the clustered trunks, while
once the girl lurched forward.  Miss Deringham gasped, but part of the
fluttering skirt was rent away, and the little lithe figure swept on
again.  The pair were, it was evident, closing with the steer, and the
latter apparently cut off from the valley it made for by the ravine.
This was not, however, to prove an insuperable obstacle, for as Miss
Deringham with difficulty edged her horse nearer, the beast charged
straight at the hollow, and dropped into it.  Then, while she regarded
its capture as certain, it rose into view again, and floundered up the
almost vertical slope on the other side with no very obvious
difficulty.  Miss Deringham, who found this riding down of a Canadian
steer almost as exciting as anything she had seen when following the
English hounds, regretted that the ravine with its fringe of
undergrowth and litter of netted branches must apparently put a stop to
the pursuit.  Though the width was not great, no horse, she fancied,
would be expected to face it, and she watched the two figures flitting
amidst the trunks to see when they would pull up.

There was, however, no sign that they intended to do so, and Miss
Deringham gasped a little when Alton glanced for a moment over his
shoulder.

"Pull him!" his voice reached her hoarsely, and she held her breath as
she saw the man's hand move on the bridle and his heels pressed home.
The horse swung clear of the thicket, plunged with head down, flung it
up, and straightened itself again; there was a drumming of hoofs, and
man and beast had shot forward from the bank.  It seemed an appreciable
time before they came down amidst the fern, and then Miss Deringham
drew in her breath with a little sibilant sigh.

"Oh!" she said softly, and there was a great smashing as man and beast
reeled through a brake on the other side.

"Yes," said Seaforth, "it was a tolerably risky thing, but it takes a
good deal to turn Harry.  Where's Nellie Townshead now?"

"There," said Miss Deringham, instinctively clenching her bridle.
"Surely the girl cannot be going to try it."

"Good Lord!" said Seaforth under his breath, and the second figure
rushed with streaming skirt and hair at the gap cleared by Alton's
passage.

Then the man turned his head, and it was a moment before he looked
round again, very white in face.  "Thank Heaven!" he said hoarsely.
"She's over."

Miss Deringham glanced at him curiously, and then laughed a little.
"Miss Townshead is evidently a determined young woman," she said, with
something in her manner which led Seaforth to fancy that this was not
intended as a compliment.  "But what is Mr. Alton doing?"

"Getting the rope ready," said Seaforth.  "It's scarcely used in this
country, but Harry once did some stock-riding on the prairie.  We'll
push on a little."

It became evident as they did so that the position favoured the
pursuers now.  A rock it was apparently incapable of climbing prevented
the flight of the steer in one direction, and Miss Townshead had ridden
forward ready to turn the beast if it attempted escape in another.  It
stopped with lowered head as though meditating an onslaught upon her,
then wheeled again and came back towards Alton, who rose a trifle in
his stirrups, whirling the rope about his head.  It shot forward
presently, uncoiling in a curve, and then the man swung backwards,
wheeling his horse, and there was a crash as the steer went down amidst
the fern.

"That should take a good deal of the friskiness out of it," said
Seaforth.  "We'll go across and join them.  There's a way over
somewhere."

The steer was roped to a tree when they came up with the pair, and
Seaforth noticed with some inward amusement the way in which the two
girls glanced at each other, and the contrast between them.  Miss
Deringham was almost too serene, and, he fancied, might have stepped
out of a picture.  Miss Townshead's cheeks were crimson, her skirt was
rent, and, though she had evidently found opportunity to effect some
alteration, loose wisps of hair still hung about her shoulders.  They
were, however, of a fine silky brown, and it seemed to Seaforth, might
have been arranged in a more unbecoming fashion.

"I wonder if I might venture to congratulate you.  We seldom witness
horsemanship of this description in England," said Miss Deringham, with
an inflection in her voice which Seaforth guessed the meaning of, and
seemed to bring a slightly warmer tinge into the already carmine cheeks
of the girl.

Still, she looked at the speaker with a little smile.  "There is a
difference between the two countries, and the scarcity of dollars in
this one explains a good deal," she said.

Alton glanced at both of them with a slightly bewildered expression.
"Of course!" said he.  "The thing's quite simple.  That steer is worth
so many dollars to Miss Townshead's father, and he couldn't afford to
lose them."

Alice Deringham turned aside with a just perceptible gesture of
impatience, which Seaforth noticed and fancied he understood, though it
was not apparent to the others, and while she rode on with him, Alton
appeared thoughtful as he did something to his bridle.  When he had
finished it he saw that his companion was smiling at him.

"It seems to me there are a good many things I don't know," said he.

"Of course," said the girl lightly.  "Still, I don't think I would
worry over them if I were you.  They are very trivial!"

Alton nodded sagely, and odd fragments of his conversation reached Miss
Deringham.  "We'll send someone back for the steer," he said.  "Jack's
no better?"

"No," said the girl, with a little quiver in her voice.  "I am afraid
the work is too hard for him up there."

Alton seemed thoughtful.  "I wonder if he would come down and do
something for me," he said.  "I could find a use for another man or
two, you see."

Again the little flush of crimson crept into Miss Townshead's cheeks.
"I don't think so; he seems to fancy he can get into the C.P.R. service
when he is better."

"Well," said Alton, "I'm going to take a liberty.  Jack wouldn't have
gone up yonder if you hadn't wanted the dollars?"

Nellie Townshead looked down a moment, then swiftly raised her head,
and though her fingers seemed to tighten on the bridle there was a
curious steadiness in her eyes.  "There is," she said, "no use in
denying what everybody knows."

Alton nodded.  "I know that kind of worry, and it's a bad one.  Has
Hallam got a hold upon the ranch?"

Miss Townshead appeared astonished, and did not answer for a moment.
"I fancied you did not know, but he has," she said.  "He came up to see
my father a week ago, and that is why we are selling the stock."

Alton's face darkened.  "That man's of the same breed as the panther,
only the panther lets up when he's full.  Well, you needn't tell me any
more.  Interest's high in this country, but it's a pity your
father------"

He stopped a moment, and appeared a trifle embarrassed when the girl
regarded him with a little flash in her eyes.  "My father has done his
best," she said.

"Of course!" said Alton hastily.  "Well, now, Hallam wants your ranch,
and when that man wants a thing it's bad to keep him from getting it,
but it wouldn't please me to see him take the ranch.  I wonder if you
can figure what his next move will be?"

The girl's fingers trembled, but there was patience and courage in her
eyes.  "I am afraid I can," said she.  "We shall be sold up and driven
out very shortly."

Alton shook his head.  "I wouldn't count too much on that.  Hallam's
bad all through, but there are one or two other men who will have a
finger in what's going to be made out of this country, and it would be
a favour if when he shuts down on you, you send word to me."

The girl did not look at the man, but rode silent for a while.  "I
think I understand you, and you are very kind--but it is impossible."

"No," said Alton grimly.  "You don't understand me.  There's not room
enough up here for Hallam and me, and I've a deal to square off with
him already.  Now when you get your notice you will send word to me?"

"Yes," said the girl, as one making a swift decision, and there was a
sudden flash of hope in her eyes.

"That is a bargain," said Alton, with the little soft laugh of his.
"Then when the deal's fixed up all the winnings will not be counted
over by Mr. Hallam."

Miss Deringham heard nothing further, and understood very little of
what had reached her, while though unusually gracious to Seaforth she
found him distinctly unresponsive.

She, however, lent Miss Townshead a hat when they reached the ranch,
and made no comment when Seaforth rode home with her.  It was late that
night when the latter found Alton smoking in a somewhat dubious mood
upon the verandah.

"Is there anything worrying you?" said he.

"Oh, yes," said Alton grimly.  "There's work of all kinds waiting, and
nothing done to-day.  Somehow women seem to play the devil with a man's
plans, Charley."

"Yes," said Seaforth, "they not infrequently do."

"Well," said Alton, "I wouldn't mind so much if I'd pleased anybody,
but I haven't, you see.  I was talking at large about something after
we'd got the steer, when Miss Nellie turned right round on me.  Then I
came back here, and Miss Deringham didn't seem pleased with me."

"Did she tell you so?" said Seaforth, smiling, and Alton turned upon
him savagely.

"No, sir, she did not," said he.  "Anyway, it wasn't necessary.  You
understand these folks from the old country, Charley?"

"It is," said Seaforth dryly, "a tolerably bold venture to assert that
one understands anybody."

"Well," said Alton, "you know what I mean.  Now do you think Miss
Deringham was vexed because she didn't get that fishing?  You see she
is tolerably keen on it.  Of course, if I had thought of it I might
have sent you with her."

"No," said Seaforth, smiling.  "I should scarcely fancy that was the
reason, and I don't fancy the arrangement suggested would have given
Miss Deringham any great pleasure.  Nor do I think I should have gone."

"No?" said Alton inquiringly.

"No," said Seaforth dryly.  "I'm not Alton of Somasco--and Carnaby--you
see."

Alton regarded him sternly out of half-closed eyes.  "There are jokes
that don't please me, Charley," he said, and then laughed softly.  "I'm
a fool with a red-hot temper, but it's a consolation that I know a
bigger one than me."

"You need not be bashful, Harry.  You mean me?"

Alton nodded as he turned upon his heel, and Seaforth watched him
meditatively.  "I wish I was as sure of it as you seem to be," said he.
"Well, I'm occasionally thankful I'm not a rich man, nor much of a
beauty."




CHAPTER X

THE UNDELIVERED MESSAGE

The afternoon was slipping by when, some time after the capture of the
steer, Alice Deringham sat waiting for Alton under a big fir.  He had
promised to take her out upon the lake, and the little breeze that
stirred the cedars to drowsy music would, she knew, ripple the shining
surface and render the capture of a big trout the less problematical.
The trout of British Columbia are also at least equal to those of
England in their faculties of discrimination and observation, and
during the listless autumn days Miss Deringham's angling had not been
especially successful.  Still, though she not infrequently returned
with an empty basket, the girl apparently retained an enthusiasm for it
she had not always displayed at home.

The lake she declared was beautiful, and this was beyond contravention,
while even when no splash disturbed its mirror-like shining she found
it pleasant to slide across its black depths in a light canoe.  She
knew, and so did Alton, that under those conditions the silver and
vermilion lure would have been quite as useful in the bottom of the
craft, but the man usually seemed too content to lazily dip the paddle
while the girl would lead him on to talk with judicious questions.
Alton could on occasion talk well, displaying a vigour and freshness of
thought which at the commencement had slightly astonished his
companion, who found a curious pleasure in sounding this and that depth
of his nature.

As a rule, he responded readily, and she was conscious of the same
sense of power that a master of the organ might feel as his fingers
touched the stops and keys.  Alton had lived simply in close touch with
nature, and though he had read much, his thoughts had something of the
pristine purity and vigour of the land he dwelt in, and were in a
fashion musical; but now and then the girl venturing overfar chanced
upon a chord that rang harsh and discordant, and shrinking a little
recognized, she fancied, the undertone of primitive barbarity.

On the afternoon in question she was, however, slightly angry with him.
He had fixed no special time, but she had waited some while, and Alice
Deringham preferred that other people should wait for her.  She had
also taken some pains with her toilet and though her attire was neat in
place of ornate, its simplicity was the result of lavish expenditure
and artistic selection.  To some extent, and so far as she could
ascertain it, it was also in accordance with the taste of the man who
was to accompany her.

It was very still.  Nobody moved in the clearing, though from beyond it
rose the faint humming of saws, and the little breeze was heavy with a
resinous fragrance.  The log-house was silent save for an occasional
clatter from the kitchen, where Mrs. Margery was apparently busy.
Alice Deringham did not like Mrs. Margery, and had reason to believe
the latter returned the feeling, though she had noticed that the
somewhat grim old lady had a smile that was almost gentle for rancher
Townshead's daughter.  Presently the rattle of plates also ceased, and
the girl found the silence exasperating.  The time was slipping by, and
there was still no sign of Alton.

At last, however, there was a thud of horsehoofs in the orchard, and a
man rode out from among the trees, but Miss Deringham, who had risen
with a smile, shut the fingers of one hand a trifle viciously when she
saw that it was not Alton.  The man sat loosely in his saddle, and his
face was a trifle flushed when he pulled the horse up.

"Is Harry Alton anywhere around, miss?" he said, and the girl noticed
that his voice was uneven.

"He may be here presently," she said.  "I don't know where he is."

"I've a long way to ride, and can't wait for him," said the man,
swaying a little as he gathered up the bridle.  "There seems to be
nobody around the place, and when he comes you might tell him to go up
to Townshead's as soon as he can.  Miss Nellie's wanting to see him,
and it's Thursday."

"Thursday?" said Miss Deringham.

"Yes," said the man.  "Harry will understand.  There was some more
about it, but I've forgotten it.  Well, you'll tell him.  I must be
getting on."

He lurched when the horse started, and though most men are abstemious
in that country, Alice Deringham decided that he was under the
influence of alcohol.  She also felt distinctly displeased with him for
bringing his message before she and Alton had set out for the lake.  It
was a favourable afternoon for fishing, and not pleasant to reflect
that her amusement must be deferred at the bidding of the girl from the
ranch.  Then she decided that as Alton would not have received the
message had he come when she expected him, it would not make any great
difference if he did not hear it until their return.  Miss Deringham
did not remember by what reasoning she arrived at that result, but it
seemed to her distinctly more fitting that Miss Townshead should be the
one to wait.

Ten minutes later Alton rode up at a gallop.  "Sorry I couldn't come
before, but I was over at Thomson's borrowing a new trolling spoon," he
said.  "Jimmy's too slow for anything, and I had to look at a span of
oxen he'd been buying."

"It seems to me that leisureliness is a characteristic of the country,"
said the girl.

Alton glanced at her with a faint twinkle in his eyes.  "Now if you
feel vexed with me, look at the horse," said he.  "Anyway, the canoe's
ready and the lake all rippling, and I've one of the new flight-hook
spoons."

Miss Deringham, who saw the spume upon the bit and the horse's whitened
sides, smiled graciously, and decided that Nellie Townshead's message
could very well wait until the evening.

"I will be ready in about five minutes," she said.

She kept the man waiting twenty, possibly because she believed it would
be a salutary discipline, and was not displeased to notice that he
stamped impatiently up and down.  Then she went down with him to the
lake, and it was dusk when they returned with several fine trout, in
the state of content with each other which occasionally characteriz

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