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Blake's Burden

by Harold Bindloss · English · Gutenberg #29155 · 524,090 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Blake's Burden

Author: Harold Bindloss


        
Release date: June 18, 2009 [eBook #29155]
                Most recently updated: January 5, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29155

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLAKE'S BURDEN ***




Produced by Al Haines









[Transcriber's note: this book has essentially the same story as
Bindloss's "The Intriguers", Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org)
#14406, however, the differences in text, paragraphing, and chapter
structure range from minor to radically different.  As an example, this
book has 32 chapters, while Intriguers has only 24.]





BLAKE'S BURDEN


By

HAROLD BINDLOSS


Author of "The Impostor," "Hawtrey's Deputy," "The Pioneer," etc




WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED

LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO

1917




BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  The Impostor
  Beneath Her Station
  The Liberationist
  League of the Leopard
  A Damaged Reputation
  The Dust of Conflict
  Hawtrey's Deputy
  The Protector
  The Pioneer
  The Trustee
  The Wastrel
  The Allinson Honour
  Blake's Burden
  The Secret of the Reef
  The Intruder
  A Risky Game
  The Borderer




CONTENTS


CHAP.

      I  THE BLAKE AFFAIR
     II  MILLICENT RENEWS AN ACQUAINTANCE
    III  THE COUSINS
     IV  CHALLONER RESUMES HIS JOURNEY
      V  MRS. KEITH GETS A SURPRISE
     VI  HARDING GROWS CONFIDENTIAL
    VII  MRS. CHUDLEIGH GATHERS INFORMATION
   VIII  THE PRAIRIE
     IX  CLARKE MAKES A SUGGESTION
      X  BENSON GIVES TROUBLE
     XI  HARDING GROWS SUSPICIOUS
    XII  THE MUSKEG
   XIII  CLARKE'S SUMMONS
    XIV  THE CURE
     XV  MRS. CHUDLEIGH FINDS A CLUE
    XVI  MRS. KEITH ENTERS THE FIELD
   XVII  THE PICTURE GALLERY
  XVIII  COLONEL CHALLONER PROVES OBDURATE
    XIX  CHALLONER'S DECISION
     XX  MRS. CHUDLEIGH MAKES A FRESH ATTEMPT
    XXI  A NEW PERSECUTOR
   XXII  CLARKE MODIFIES HIS PLANS
  XXIII  THE CARIBOU
   XXIV  THE FACTORY
    XXV  THE BACK TRAIL
   XXVI  THE RESCUE
  XXVII  A STARTLING DISCOVERY
 XXVIII  A MATTER OF DUTY
   XXIX  BLAKE HOLDS HIS GROUND
    XXX  MRS. CHUDLEIGH'S DEFEAT
   XXXI  A DIFFICULT QUESTION
  XXXII  HARDING STRIKES OIL




CHAPTER I

THE BLAKE AFFAIR

It was a fine morning and Mrs. Keith sat with a companion, enjoying the
sunshine, near the end of Dufferin Avenue, which skirts the elevated
ground above the city of Quebec.  Behind her rose the Heights of
Abraham where the dying Wolfe wrested Canada from France; in front,
churches, banks, offices and dwellings, curiously combining the old and
the very new, rose tier on tier to the great red _Frontenac_ hotel, at
which she was staying.  It is a picturesque city that climbs back from
its noble river; supreme, perhaps, in its situation among Canadian
towns, and still retaining something of the exotic stamp set upon it by
its first builders whose art was learned in the France of long ago.

From where she sat Mrs. Keith could not see the ugly wooden wharves.
Her glance rested on the flood that flowed towards her, still and deep,
through a gorge lined with crags and woods, and then, widening rapidly,
washed the shores of a low, green island.  Opposite her white houses
shone on the Levis ridge, and beyond this a vast sweep of country,
steeped in gradations of colour that ended in ethereal blue, rolled
away towards the hills of Maine.  Quebec was then filled with
distinguished guests.  British royalty had visited it, with many who
belonged to the great world in London and some who aspired to do so.
Canada had become fashionable, and in addition to English folk of
station, Westerners and Americans of note had gathered in the ancient
city.  The ceremonies were over, but the company had not all dispersed.

The two ladies were elderly.  They had played their part in the drama
of life, one of them in a strenuous manner, and now they were content
with the position of lookers on.  So far, however, nothing had occurred
since breakfast to excite their interest, and by and by Mrs. Keith
turned to her companion with characteristic briskness.

"I think I'll go to Montreal by the special boat to-night," she said.
"The hotel's crowded, the town's full, and you keep meeting people whom
you know or have heard about.  I came here to see Canada, but find it
hard to realize that I'm not in London; I'm tired of the bustle."

Mrs. Ashborne smiled.  She had met Margaret Keith by chance in Quebec,
but their acquaintance was of several years' standing.

"Tired?" she said.  "That is surely a new sensation for you.  I've
often envied you your energy."

Age had touched Mrs. Keith lightly, though she had long been a
childless widow and had silvery hair.  Tall and finely made, with
prominent nose and piercing eyes, she was marked by a certain
stateliness and a decided manner.  She was blunt without rudeness, and
though often forceful was seldom arrogant.  Careless of her dress, as
she generally was, Margaret Keith bore the stamp of refinement and
breeding.

"Ah!" she said; "I begin to feel I'm old.  But will you come to
Montreal with me to-night?"

"I suppose I'd better, though the boat takes longer than the train and
I hear that the _Place Viger_ is full.  I don't know anything about the
other hotels; they mightn't be comfortable."

"They'll no doubt be able to offer us all that we require, and I never
pamper myself," Mrs. Keith replied.  "In fact, it's now and then a
relief to do something that's opposed to the luxuriousness of the age."

This was a favourite topic, but she broke off as a man came towards
her, carrying one or two small parcels which apparently belonged to the
girl at his side.  He was a handsome man, tall and rather spare, with
dark eyes and a soldierly look.  His movements were quick and forceful,
but a hint of what Mrs. Keith called swagger somewhat spoiled his
bearing.  She thought he allowed his self-confidence to be seen too
plainly.  The girl formed a marked contrast to him; she was short and
slender, her hair and eyes were brown, while her prettiness, for one
could not have called her beautiful, was of an essentially delicate
kind.  It did not strike one at first sight, but grew upon her
acquaintances.  Her manner was quiet and reserved and she was plainly
dressed in white, but when she turned and dismissed her companion her
pose was graceful.  Then she handed Mrs. Keith some letters and papers.

"I have been to the post office and Captain Sedgwick made them search
for our mail," she said.  "It came some time ago, but there was a
mistake through its not being addressed to the hotel."

Mrs. Keith took the letters and gave Mrs. Ashborne an English
newspaper, but the girl went on: "The bobcat has torn a hole in the
basket and I'm afraid it's trying to get at the mink."

"Tell some of the hotel people to take it out at once and see that the
basket is sent to be mended."

The girl withdrew and Mrs. Ashborne looked up.  "Did I hear aright?
She said a bob-cat."

"You did.  I am making a collection of the smaller American animals,
and a bob-cat is something like a big English ferret.  It has high
hindquarters and walks with a curious jump, which I suppose is why it
got its name.  I'm not sure it lives in Canada, and an American got
this one for me.  I find natural history interesting."

Margaret Keith was known to be eccentric, and her companion laughed.
"I should imagine you found it expensive, and aren't some of the
creatures savage?"

"Millicent looks after them, and I always beat the sellers down.
Fortunately, I can afford to indulge in my caprices, and you can
consider this my latest fad if you like.  I am subject to no claims,
and my means are hardly large enough to make me an object of interest
to sycophantic relatives."

"Is your companion fond of attending to wild animals?" Mrs. Ashborne
inquired.  "I have wondered where you got her.  You have had a number,
but she is different from the rest."

"I suppose you mean she is too good for the post?" Mrs. Keith
suggested.  "However, I don't mind telling you that she is Eustace
Graham's daughter; you must have heard of him."

"Eustace Graham?  Wasn't he in rather bad odour?--only tolerated on the
fringe of society?  I seem to recollect some curious tales about him."

"Latterly he was outside the fringe; indeed, I don't know how he kept
on his feet so long, but he went downhill fast towards the end.  A
plucker of plump pigeons, an expensive friend to smart young subalterns
and boys about town.  Cards, bets, loans arranged, and that kind of
thing!  All the same, he had his good points when I first knew him."

"But after such a life as his daughter must have led, do you consider
her a suitable person to take about with you?  What do your friends
think?  They have to receive her now and then."

"I can't say that I have much cause to respect my friends' opinions,
and I'm not afraid of the girl's contaminating me," Mrs. Keith replied.
"Besides, Millicent, who lost her mother early, lived with her aunts
until a few months before her father's death.  I expect Eustace felt
more embarrassed than grateful when she came to take care of him, but,
to do him justice, he would see that none of the taint of his
surroundings rested on the girl.  He did wrong, but I think he paid for
it, and it is better to be charitable."

She broke off, and glanced down at the big liner with cream-coloured
funnel that was slowly swinging across the stream as she resumed: "I
must send Millicent to buy our tickets for Montreal.  The hotel will be
crowded before long with that steamer's noisy passengers."

"Do you know anything about Captain Sedgwick, who brought you your
letters?" her companion asked.

"Not much.  Distinguished himself somewhere and holds a Government post
in a West African colony.  Came home on furlough, and seems to have had
some part in the state functions here.  I'm inclined to think he's a
soldier of fortune; a man with a humble beginning, determined to get
on."

"Isn't that Mrs. Chudleigh he's now talking to?"

Mrs. Ashborne was short-sighted, but Margaret Keith's eyes were better,
and she noticed the stylish woman whom Sedgwick had joined.

"Yes," she said.  "A widow, I believe, though one would not suspect it
from her clothes.  She seems to know some of my friends, but I met her
here for the first time a few days ago."

"She married very young and her husband, who died in a few years, left
her a good deal of money; he was a merchant in Calcutta.  She's too
smart and advanced for my taste, but her people have some standing.  It
looks as if she were attracted by Sedgwick; she's undoubtedly gracious
to him."

"Then it's an opportunity he won't miss.  The man's an adventurer."

Sedgwick and his companion passed out of sight, and Mrs. Ashborne
opened the _Morning Post_, from which she presently looked up.

"'A marriage--between Blanche Newcombe and Captain Challoner--at
Thornton Holme, in Shropshire,'" she read out.  "Do you know the bride?"

"I know Bertram Challoner better," Mrs. Keith replied, and was silent
for a minute or two, musing on former days.  Then she went on: "His
mother was an old friend of mine; a woman of imagination, with strong
artistic tastes, and Bertram resembles her.  It was his father, the
Colonel, who forced him into the army, and I'm somewhat astonished that
he has done so well."

"They were all soldiers, I understand.  But wasn't there some scandal
about a cousin?"

"Richard Blake?" said Mrs. Keith, making room for Millicent Graham, her
companion, who rejoined them.  "It's getting an old story, and I always
found it puzzling.  So far as one could judge, Dick Blake should have
made an excellent officer; his mother, the Colonel's sister, was true
to the Challoner strain, his father a reckless Irish sportsman."

"But what was the story?  I haven't heard it."

"After Blake broke his neck when hunting, the Colonel brought Dick up
and, as a matter of course, sent him into the army.  He became a
sapper, and, entering the Indian service, met his cousin, Bertram, who
was in the line, somewhere on the frontier.  They were both sent with
an expedition into the hills, and there was a night attack.  It was
important that an advanced post should be defended, and Dick had laid
out the trenches.  In the middle of the fight an officer lost his
nerve, the position was stormed, and the expedition terribly cut up.
Owing to the darkness and confusion there was a doubt about who had led
the retreat, but Dick was blamed and made no defence.  In spite of
this, he was acquitted at the inquiry, perhaps because he was a
favourite and Colonel Challoner was well known upon the frontier, but
the opinion of the mess was against him.  He left the service and the
Challoners never speak of him."

"I once met Lieutenant Blake," Millicent broke in with a flush in her
face.  "Though he only spoke a word or two to me, he did a very
chivalrous thing; one that needed courage and coolness.  I find it hard
to believe he could be a coward."

"So do I," Mrs. Keith agreed.  "Still I must say that I haven't seen
him since he was a boy."

"I met him once," said Mrs. Ashborne.  "There was a man in the hotel
yesterday who strongly reminded me of him, but I think he must have
left last night."

"I have forgotten my letters, but I know from whom they come, and
they'll no doubt give me some news of the wedding," Mrs. Keith
remarked, and while she opened them Millicent sat looking down on the
glistening river with her thoughts far away.

She was reconstructing a scene from the past, and she could picture
with vivid distinctness the small, untidy drawing-room of a London
flat, in which she sat, alone and half-dismayed, one evening soon after
she had joined her father.  A few beautiful objects of art were
scattered amongst the shabby furniture; there were stains of wine on
the fine Eastern rug, an inlaid table was scraped and damaged, and one
chair had a broken leg.  All she saw spoke of neglect and vanished
prosperity.  Hoarse voices and loud laughter came from an adjoining
room and a smell of cigar smoke accompanied them.  Sitting at the
piano, she restlessly turned over some music and now and then played a
few bars to divert her troubled thoughts.  Until a few weeks before she
had led a peaceful life in the country, and the finding her father of
such doubtful character and habits had been a painful surprise.

She was interrupted by the violent opening of the door and a group of
excited men burst into the room.  They were shouting with laughter at a
joke which made her blush, and one dragged a companion in by the arm.
Another, breaking off from rude horse-play, came towards her with a
drunken leer.  She shrank from his hot face and wine-laden breath as
she drew back, wondering how she could reach her father, who stood in
the doorway trying to restrain his guests.  Then a young man sprang
forward, with disgust and anger in his brown face, and she felt that
she was safe.  He looked clean and wholesome by contrast with the rest
and his movements were swift and athletic.

Millicent could remember him very well, for she had often thought of
Lieutenant Blake with gratitude.  Just as the tipsy gallant stretched
out his hand to seize her, the electric light went out; there was a
brief scuffle in the darkness, the door banged, and when the light
flashed up again only Blake and her father were in the room.
Afterwards her father told her with a look of shame in his handsome,
dissipated face, that he had been afraid of something of the kind
happening and she must leave him.  Millicent refused, for worn as he
was by many excesses, his health was breaking down and when he fell ill
she nursed him until he died.  She had not seen Lieutenant Blake since.

By and by Mrs. Keith's voice broke in upon her recollections.  "It's
possible we may see Bertram and the new Mrs. Challoner.  She is going
out with him, but they are to travel by the Canadian Pacific route and
spend some time in Japan before proceeding to his Indian station."
Referring to the date of her letter she resumed, "They may have caught
the boat that has just come in; she's one of the railway Empresses, and
there's an Allan liner due to-morrow.  Now I think we'll go to the
hotel and try to get a list of the passengers."

She rose and they walked slowly back along the avenue.




CHAPTER II

MILLICENT RENEWS AN ACQUAINTANCE

Dusk was falling on the broad river, and the bold ridge behind the city
stood out sharp and black against a fading gleam in the western sky,
when Richard Blake hurried along the wharf.  Close at hand a big,
sidewheel steamer, spotlessly white, with tiers of decks that towered
above the sheds and blazed with light, was receiving the last of her
passengers, and on reaching the gangway Blake stood aside to let an
elderly lady pass.  She was followed by her maid and a girl whose face
he could not see.  It was a few minutes after the sailing time, and as
the lady stepped on board a rope fell with a splash.  There was a shout
of warning as the bows, caught by the current, began to swing out into
the stream, and the end of the gangway slipped along the edge of the
wharf.  It threatened to fall into the river, the girl was not on board
yet, and Blake leaped upon the plank.  Seizing her shoulder, he drove
her forward until a seaman, reaching out, drew her safe on deck.  Then
the paddles splashed and as the boat forged out into the stream, the
girl turned and thanked Blake.  He could not see her clearly, because
an over-arching deck cast a shadow upon her face.

"Glad to have been of assistance, but I don't think you could have
fallen in," he said.  "The guy-rope they had on the gangway might have
held it up."

Turning away, he entered the smoke-room, where he spent a while over an
English newspaper that devoted some space to social functions and the
doings of people of importance, noticing once or twice, with a curious
smile, mention of names he knew.  He had the gift of making friends,
and before he went to India had met a number of men and women of note
who had been disposed to like him.  Then he had won the good opinion of
responsible officers on the turbulent frontier and made acquaintances
that might have been valuable.  Now, however, he had done with all
that; he was banished from the world they moved in, and if they ever
remembered him it was, no doubt, as one who had gone under.

Shaking off these thoughts, he joined some Americans in a game of
cards, and it was late at night when he went out into the moonlight as
the boat steamed up Lake St. Peter.  A long plume of smoke trailed
across the cloudless sky, the water glistened with silvery radiance,
and, looking over the wide expanse, he could see dark trees etched
faintly on the blue horizon.  Ahead the lights of Three Rivers twinkled
among square, black blocks of houses and tall sawmill stacks.

A few passengers were strolling about, but the English newspaper had
made him restless and to wish to be alone, so, descending to a quieter
deck, he was surprised to see the girl he had assisted sitting in a
canvas chair near the rail.  Close by stood several large baskets from
which there rose an angry snarling.

"What is this?" he asked with the careless abruptness which usually
characterized him.  "With your permission."  He raised a lid, while the
girl watched him with amusement.

"Looks like a menagerie on a small scale," he remarked.  "Are these
animals yours?"

"No," she answered; "they belong to Mrs. Keith."

"Mrs. Keith?" he said sharply.  "The lady I saw at the _Frontenac_ with
the autocratic manners and a Roman nose?  It's curious, but she reminds
me of somebody I knew and the name's the same.  I wonder----"

He broke off, and Millicent Graham studied him as he stood in the
moonlight.  She did not think he recognized her and perhaps he was
hardly justified in supposing that his timely aid at the gangway
dispensed with the need for an introduction, but she liked his looks,
which she remembered well.  She had no fear of this man's presuming too
far; he had a humorous, good-natured air and his surprise when she
mentioned Mrs. Keith had roused her interest.

"Yes," she said; "I believe it was my employer you knew."

He did not follow this lead, but asked: "Are you supposed to sit up all
night and watch the animals for her?"

"Only for an hour or two.  The steamboat people refused to have them in
the saloon, and the maid should have relieved me.  She was tired,
however, with packing and running errands all day, and I thought I'd
let her sleep a while."

"Then it can't be much of an intrusion if I try to make you more
comfortable.  Let me move your chair nearer the deckhouse, where you'll
be out of the wind; but I'll first see if I can find another rug."

He left her without waiting for a reply and, returning with a rug,
placed her chair in a sheltered spot, after which he leaned against the
rails.

"So you are Mrs. Keith's companion," he remarked.  "It strikes me as
rather unfeeling of her to keep you here in the cold."  He indicated
the baskets.  "But what's her object in buying these creatures?"

"Caprice," said Millicent, smiling.  "Some of them are savage, and they
cost a good deal.  I can't imagine what she means to do with them, and
I don't think she knows.  One of them, however, has been growling all
day, and as it's apparently unwell it mustn't be neglected."

"If it growls any more, I'll feel tempted to turn yonder hose upon it
or try some other drastic remedy."

"Please don't!" cried Millicent in alarm.  "But you mustn't think Mrs.
Keith is inconsiderate.  I have much to thank her for, but she gets
very enthusiastic over her hobbies."

"Do you know if she ever goes down to a little place in Shropshire?"

"She does; I have been with her.  Once she took me to your old home."
Then the colour crept into Millicent's face.  "You don't seem to
remember me, Lieutenant Blake."

Blake, who had learned self-control, did not start, though he came near
doing so as he recalled a scene he had taken part in some years
earlier.  He had just risen from a dining-table, where the talk had
been of favourite dancers and the turf, and the wine had circulated too
freely, and entered a small drawing-room with several men whom his host
was assisting in a career of dissipation.  As they came in a girl rose
from the piano and on seeing her Blake felt a sense of awkwardness and
shame.  She looked very fresh and pretty, untainted, he thought, by her
surroundings, and the annoyance in her father's face suggested that he
had not expected to find her there.  Blake saw that she shrank from his
noisy companions in alarm.  One of them, who had drunk too deep, not
noticing that she was startled and imagining that she was a fit subject
for rough gallantry, pursued her as she tried to escape, but Blake with
a quick movement reached a switch and cut off the light.  Next moment
he seized the offender and hustled him out of the room.  He had saved
an awkward situation and was afterwards thanked by the man he had
roughly handled.

"It would have been inexcusable if I had forgotten you," he answered
with a smile.  "Still, I couldn't quite place you until a few moments
ago, when you faced the light.  But you were wrong in one thing; I'm no
longer Lieutenant Blake."

She appreciated the frankness which had prompted this warning and saw
that she had made a tactless blunder, but she looked at him steadily.

"I forgot," she said; "forgive me.  I heard of--what happened in
India--but I felt that there must have been some mistake."  She
hesitated for a moment.  "I think so now."

Blake made a sudden movement, and then leaned back against the rails.
"I'm afraid that an acquaintance which lasted three or four minutes
could hardly enable you to judge; first impressions are often wrong,
you know.  Anyhow, I don't complain of the opinion of gentlemen who
knew more about me."

Millicent saw that the subject must be dropped and resuming, said: "At
our first meeting I had no opportunity of thanking you, and you gave me
none to-night.  It's curious that while I've only met you twice, on
both occasions you turned up just when you were needed.  Is it a habit
of yours?"

"That's a flattering thing to hint.  The man who's always on hand when
he's wanted is an estimable person."

"It's not quite what I meant," she answered, laughing.  "What struck me
most was that you don't seem to like gratitude."

"One ought to like it.  It's supposed to be rare, but, on the whole, I
haven't found that so."

He studied her with an interest which she noticed but could not resent.
The girl had changed and gained something since their first meeting,
and he thought it was a knowledge of the world.  She was, he felt,
neither tainted nor hardened by what she had learned, but her fresh
childish look which suggested ignorance of evil had gone and could not
come back.  Indeed, he wondered how she had preserved it in her
father's house.  This was not a matter he could touch upon, but by and
by she referred to it.

"I imagine," she said shyly, "that on the evening when you came to my
rescue in London you were surprised to find me--so unprepared; so
incapable of dealing with the situation."

"That is true," Blake answered with some awkwardness.  "A bachelor
dinner, you know, after a big race meeting at which we had backed
several winners!  One has to make allowances."

Millicent smiled rather bitterly.  "You may guess that I had to make
them often in those days, but it was on the evening we were speaking of
that my eyes were first opened, and I was startled.  But you must
understand that it was not by my father's wish I came to London and
stayed with him--until the end.  He urged me to go away, but his health
had broken down and he had no one else to care for him.  When he was no
longer able to get about everybody deserted him, and he felt it."

Blake was stirred to compassion.  Graham had, no doubt, suffered
nothing he had not deserved, but the man had once been a social
favourite, and it was painful to think of his dying alone in poverty.
His extravagance and the shifts by which he evaded his creditors were
known, and Blake could imagine how hard he would be pressed when he lay
sick and helpless.  It must have been a harrowing experience for a
young girl to nurse him and at the same time to grapple with financial
difficulties.

"I was truly sorry to hear of his death," he said.  "Your father was
once a very good friend to me.  But, if I may ask, how was it he let
you come to his flat?"

"I forced myself upon him," Millicent answered, with a grateful glance.
"My mother died long ago and her unmarried sisters took care of me.
They lived very simply in a small secluded country house; two
old-fashioned Evangelicals, gentle but austere, studying small
economies, giving all they could away.  In winter we embroidered for
missionary bazaars; in summer we spent the days in a quiet, walled
garden.  It was all very peaceful, but I grew restless, and when I
heard that my father's health was failing I felt I must go to him.  My
aunts were grieved and alarmed, but they said they dare not hinder me
if I thought it my duty."

Stirred by troubled memories and perhaps encouraged by the sympathy he
showed, she had spoken on impulse without reserve, and Blake listened
with pity.  The girl, brought up, subject to wholesome Puritanical
influences, in such surroundings as she had described, must have
suffered a cruel shock when suddenly plunged into the society of the
rakes and gamblers who frequented her father's flat.

"Could you not have gone back when you were no longer needed?" he asked.

"No," she said; "it would not have been fair.  I had changed since I
left my aunts.  They were very sensitive, and I think the difference
they must have noticed in me would have jarred on them.  I should have
brought something alien into their unworldly life.  It was too late to
return; I had to follow the path I had chosen."

Blake mused a while, watching the lights of Three Rivers fade astern
and the broad white wake of the paddles stream back across the glassy
surface of the lake.  The girl must have learned much of human failings
since she left her sheltered home, but he thought the sweetness of
character which could not be spoiled by knowledge of evil was greatly
to be admired.  He was, however, a man of action and not a philosopher.

"Well," he said, "I appreciate your letting me talk to you, but it's
cold and getting late, and you have sat on deck long enough.  I'll see
that somebody looks after the animals."

Millicent felt dubious, though she was sleepy and tired.  "If anything
happened to her pets, Mrs. Keith would not forgive me."

"I'll engage that something will happen to some of them very soon
unless you promise to go to your room," Blake said, laughing.  Then he
called a deckhand.  "What have you to do?"

"Stand here until the watch is changed."

"Then you can keep an eye on these baskets.  If any of the beasts
inside them makes an alarming noise, send to my room; the second,
forward, port side.  Look me up before we get to Montreal."

"That's all right," said the man, and Blake held out his hand to
Millicent as she rose.

"Now," he said, "you can go to rest with a clear conscience."

She left him with a word of thanks, wondering whether she had been
indiscreet, and why she had told him so much.  She knew nothing to his
advantage except one chivalrous action, and she had not desired to
arouse his pity, but he had an honest face and had shown an
understanding sympathy which touched her, because she had seldom
experienced it.  He had left the army with a stain upon his name, but
she shrank from judging harshly and felt that he had not merited his
disgrace.  Then she forgot him and went to sleep.

Blake stayed on deck some time, thinking about her, but presently
decided that this was an unprofitable occupation.  He was a marked man,
with a lonely road to travel, and, though he found some amusement by
the way it led him apart from the society of women of the kind he most
cared for.




CHAPTER III

THE COUSINS

Dinner was over at the _Windsor_ in Montreal, and Mrs. Keith, who found
the big hotel rather noisy and uncomfortably warm, was sitting with
Mrs. Ashborne in the square between it and St. Catharine's Street.  A
cool air blew uphill from the river and the patch of grass with its
fringe of small, dusty trees had a certain picturesqueness in the
twilight.  Above it the wooded crest of the mountain rose darkly
against the evening sky; lights glittered behind the network of thin
branches and fluttering leaves along the sidewalk, and the dome of the
cathedral bulked huge and shadowy across the square.  Down hill,
towards St. James's, rose towering buildings, with the rough-hewn front
of the Canadian Pacific depot prominent among them, and the air was
filled with the clanging of street cars and the tolling of locomotive
bells.  Once or twice, however, when the throb of the traffic
momentarily subsided, music rose faint and sweet from the cathedral,
and Mrs. Keith, who heard the uplifted voices and knew what they sang,
turned to listen.  She had heard them before, through her open window
in the early morning when the city was silent and its busy toilers
slept, and now it seemed to her appropriate that the voices could not
be wholly drowned by its hoarse commercial clamour.

The square served as a cool retreat for the inhabitants of crowded
tenements and those who had nowhere else to go, but Margaret Keith was
not fastidious about her company.  She was interested in the unkempt
emigrants who, waiting for a Westbound train, lay upon the grass,
surrounded by their tired children, and she had sent Millicent down the
street to buy fruit to distribute among the travellers; she liked to
watch the French Canadian girls who slipped quietly up the broad
cathedral steps.  They were the daughters of the rank and file, but
their movements were graceful and they were tastefully dressed.  Then
the blue-shirted, sinewy men, who strolled past, smoking, roused her
curiosity.  They had not acquired their free, springy stride in the
cities; these were adventurers who had met with strange experiences in
the frozen North and the lonely West.  Some of them had hard faces and
a predatory air, but that added to their interest.  Margaret Keith
liked to watch them all and speculate about their mode of life; that
pleasure could still be enjoyed, though as she sometimes told herself
with humorous resignation, she could no longer take a very active part
in things.

By and by, however, something that appealed to her in a more direct and
personal way occurred, for a man came down the steps of the _Windsor_
and crossed the well-lighted street with a very pretty English girl.
He carried himself well and had the look of a soldier, his figure was
finely proportioned, but his handsome face suggested sensibility rather
than decision of character and his eyes were dreamy.  His companion, so
far as Mrs. Keith could judge by her smiling glance as she laid her
hand upon his arm when they left the sidewalk, was proud of and much in
love with him.

"Whom are you looking at so hard?" Mrs. Ashborne inquired.

"Bertram Challoner and his bride," said Mrs. Keith.  "They're coming
towards us yonder."

Then a curious thing happened, for a man who was crossing the street
seemed to see the Challoners and, turning suddenly, stepped back behind
a passing cab.  They had their backs to him when he went on, but he
looked round, as if to make sure he had not been observed before he
entered the hotel.

"That was strange," said Mrs. Ashborne.  "It looked as if the fellow
didn't want to meet our friends.  Who can he be?"

"How can I tell?" Mrs. Keith rejoined.  "I think I've seen him
somewhere, but that's all I know."

Looking round as Millicent joined them, she noticed her puzzled
expression.  The girl had obviously seen the stranger's action, but
Mrs. Keith did not wish to pursue the subject then.  Next moment
Challoner came up and greeted her heartily, while his wife spoke to
Mrs. Ashborne.

"We only arrived this afternoon and must have missed you at dinner," he
said.  "We may go West to-morrow, though we haven't decided yet.  I've
no doubt we shall see you again to-night or at breakfast."

After a few pleasant words the Challoners passed on, and Mrs. Keith
looked after them thoughtfully.

"Bertram has changed in the last few years," she said.  "I heard he had
malaria in India, which perhaps accounts for it, but he shows signs of
his mother's delicacy.  She was not strong, and I always thought he had
her highly-strung nervous temperament, though he must have learned to
control it in the army."

"He couldn't have got in unless the doctors were satisfied with him,"
said Mrs. Ashborne.

"That's true, but both mental and physical traits have a way of lying
dormant while we're young and of developing later.  Bertram has shown
himself a capable officer, but to my mind, he looked more like a
soldier when he was at Sandhurst than he does now."

A few minutes later Mrs. Chudleigh came out of the hotel with Sedgwick
and stopped to speak to Mrs. Keith.

"I came up by the last train and heard that you were here.  Captain
Sedgwick travelled with me, but he's going on to Toronto to-morrow.  I
suppose you have seen the Challoners?  Such a number of English people
in the town!  But isn't this a curious place to spend the evening?"

"It's cool," said Mrs. Keith.  "I like fresh air."

Mrs. Chudleigh, glanced towards Millicent, who was distributing a
basket of peaches among a group of untidy, emigrant children.

"That's a charming picture, isn't it?  Miss Graham fits the part very
well, but I suppose you're responsible."

There was a sneer in her tone and Sedgwick broke in: "Miss Graham's a
very nice girl; you can see that she's sorry for the dirty little
beggars.  They don't look as if they'd had a happy time, and a liner's
crowded steerage isn't a luxurious place."

"Since you feel so pitiful, it would be more to the purpose if you gave
them something," Mrs. Chudleigh rejoined.

"A good idea!" said Sedgwick coolly.  "I'll carry it out."

He crossed the grass and scattered a few small coins among the
children, who clustered round him, after which he stood talking to
Millicent, while Mrs. Chudleigh watched him with an impatience she did
not try to hide.

"It's a new role for Sedgwick," she remarked.  "When he has finished,
we are going into the cathedral to hear the music.  I'm fond of
churches, and we spent the afternoon in Notre Dame."

Mrs. Ashborne said it was worth seeing and conversation languished for
the next three or four minutes, after which Mrs. Chudleigh moved
forward imperiously and took Sedgwick away.  Mrs. Keith turned to her
companion with an amused expression.

"I daresay you noticed that he didn't mind keeping her waiting."

"I thought he meant to flout her when he acted on her suggestion, and I
half expected something of a scene," said Mrs. Ashborne.  "The woman
has a temper."

Mrs. Keith smiled.  "The man is a fortune hunter, but he's taking the
right way.  She's used to admiration, and her other suitors have, no
doubt, deferred to her.  It's a change to be defied instead of courted,
and though it makes her angry I imagine it strengthens his hold.  If he
shows his is the firmer hand, she'll give in."

"You're taking it for granted that she's in love with him."

"It looks like it," Mrs. Keith replied.  "He has his attractions and
has done one or two dashing things of the kind that catches the public
eye.  However, I have some English letters to write, and I think we'll
go in."

Next evening, about an hour before sunset, Challoner and his wife
leaned upon the rails of a wooden gallery built out from the rock on
the summit of the green mountain that rises close behind Montreal.  It
is a view-point that visitors frequent, and they gazed with
appreciation at the wide landscape.  Wooded slopes led steeply down to
the stately colleges of McGill and the rows of picturesque houses along
Sherbrook Avenue; lower yet, the city, shining in the clear evening
light, spread across the plain, dominated by its cathedral dome and the
towers of Notre Dame.  Green squares with trees in them checkered the
blocks of buildings; along its skirts, where a haze of smoke hung about
the wharves, the great river gleamed in a broad silver band.  On the
farther bank the plain ran on again, fading from green to grey and
purple until it melted into the distance and the hills on the Vermont
frontier cut, faintly blue, against the sky.

"How beautiful this world is!" Challoner exclaimed.  "I have seen
grander sights and there are more picturesque cities than Montreal--I'm
looking forward to showing you the work of the Moguls in India--but
happiness such as I've had of late casts a glamour over everything.  It
wasn't always so with me; I've had my bad hours when I was blind to
beauty."

Though Blanche Challoner was very young and much in love, she ventured
a smiling rebuke.

"You shouldn't wish to remember them; I'm afraid, Bertram, there's a
melancholy strain in you, and I don't mean to let you indulge in it.
Besides, how could you have had bad hours?  You have been made much of
and given everything you could wish for since you were a boy.  Indeed,
I sometimes wonder how you escaped from being spoiled."

"When I joined it, I hated the army; that sounds like high treason,
doesn't it?  However, I got used to things and made art my hobby
instead of my vocation.  You won't mind if I confess that a view of
this kind makes me long to paint?"

"Oh! no; I intend to encourage you.  You mustn't waste your talent.
When we stay among the Rockies we will spend the days in the most
beautiful places we can find and I shall take my pleasure in watching
you at work.  But didn't your fondness for sketching amuse the mess?"

"I used to be chaffed about it and repaid my tormentors by caricaturing
them.  On the whole, they were very good-natured."

"I expect they admired the drawings; they ought to have done.  You have
talent.  Indeed, I never quite understood why you became a soldier."

"I think it was from a want of moral courage; you have seen that
determination is not among my virtues," Challoner replied.  "It's as
much to the purpose that you don't know my father very well.  Though
he's fond of pictures, he looks upon artists and poets as a rather
effeminate and irresponsible set, and I must own that he has met one or
two unfavourable specimens.  Then he couldn't imagine the possibility
of a son of his not being anxious to follow the family profession, and,
knowing how my defection would grieve him, I let him have his way.
There has always been a Challoner fighting or ruling in India since
John Company's time."

"They must have been fine men by their portraits.  There's one of a
Major Henry Challoner I fell in love with.  He was with Outram, wasn't
he?  You have his look, though there's a puzzling difference.  I think
these men were bluffer and blunter than you are.  You're gentler and
more sensitive; in a way, finer drawn."

"My sensitiveness has not been a blessing," said Challoner soberly.

"But it makes you lovable," Blanche declared.  "There must have been a
certain ruthlessness about those old Challoners which you couldn't
show.  After all, their pictures suggest that their courage was of the
unimaginative, physical kind."

A shadow crept into Challoner's face, but he banished it.

"I am happy in having a wife who won't see my faults."  Then he added
humorously: "After all, however, that's not good for one."

Blanche gave him a tender smile, but he did not see it, for he was
gazing at a man who came down the steps from the neighbouring cable
railway.  The newcomer was about thirty years of age, of average
height, and strongly made.  His face was deeply sunburned and he had
eyes of a curious dark-blue with a twinkle in them and dark lashes,
though his hair was fair.  As he drew nearer, Blanche was struck by
something that suggested the family likeness of the Challoners.  He had
their firm mouth and wide forehead, but by no means their somewhat
austere expression.  He looked as if he went careless through life and
could be readily amused.  Then he saw Bertram, and, starting, made as
if he would pass the entrance to the gallery, and Blanche turned her
surprised glance upon her husband.  Bertram's hand was tightly closed
on the glasses he held and his face was tense and flushed, but he
stepped forward with a cry of "Dick!"

The newcomer moved towards him, and Blanche knew he was the man who had
brought dishonour upon her husband's family.

"This is a fortunate meeting," Bertram said, and his voice was cordial,
though rather strained.  Then he turned to his wife.  "Blanche, here's
my cousin, Dick Blake."

Blake showed no awkwardness.  Indeed, on the whole he looked amused,
but his face grew graver as he fixed his eyes on Mrs. Challoner.

"Though I'm rather late, you'll let me wish you happiness," he said.
"I believe it will be yours.  Bertram's a very good fellow; I have much
to thank him for."

There was a sincerity and a hint of affection in his tone which touched
Blanche.  She had been prepared to suspend her judgment and be
charitable, but she found that she pitied the man.  He had failed in
his duty in time of stress, but he had suffered for it and it must be
hard to be an outcast.  Blake saw her compassion and was moved by it.

"But how did you come here?" Bertram asked.  "Where have you been
since----"

He stopped abruptly and Blake laughed.  "Since you surreptitiously said
good-bye to me at Peshawur?  Well, after that I went to Penang and from
there to Queensland.  Stayed a time at a pearl-fishing station among
the Kanakas, and then came to England for a few months."

"But how did you manage?" Bertram inquired with some diffidence.  "It
raises a point you wouldn't let me talk about at Peshawur, but I've
often felt guilty because I didn't insist.  Travelling about as you
have done is expensive."

"Not to me," Blake rejoined with a twinkle.  "I've turned adventurer
and I have the Blake gift of getting along without money."  He added in
an explanatory aside to Blanche: "For two or three generations we kept
open house, and a full stable in Ireland, on a revenue derived from
rents which were rarely paid, and if I hadn't been too young when a
disaster gave the creditors their chance, I'd have given them a
sporting run."

"But what did you do when you left England?" Bertram broke in.

"Went to East Africa; after that to this country where I tried my hand
at prairie farming.  Found it decidedly monotonous and sold the
homestead at a profit.  Then I did some prospecting, and now I'm here
on business."

"On business!" Bertram exclaimed.  "You could never be trusted to get
proper value for a shilling."

"I've learned to do so lately, and that's not going far.  If you're in
commerce in this country, you must know how to put down fifty cents and
take up a dollar's worth.  Anyhow, I'm here to meet an American whose
acquaintance I made farther West.  He's a traveller in paints and
varnishes and a very enterprising person as well as an unusually good
sort.  But I've told you enough about myself; I want your news."

Blanche, who had been watching him, thought it cost her husband an
effort to fall in with his cousin's casual mood.  Blake, however,
seemed quite at ease, and she was growing interested in him.  He
reminded her of the Challoner portraits in the dark oak gallery at
Sandymere, but she thought him lighter, more brilliant, and, in a
sense, more human than those stern soldiers.  Then she remembered his
Irish father, which explained something.  They talked a while about
English friends and relatives; and then Blake said rather abruptly--

"And the Colonel?"

"Well," said Bertram.  "I heard that you saw him, Dick."

"I did, for half an hour.  I felt it was my duty, though the interview
was hard on both.  He was fair, as he always was, and tried to hide his
feelings.  I couldn't blame him because he failed."

Bertram looked away, and Blake's face was troubled.  There was a hint
of emotion in his voice as he went on, turning to Blanche--

"Whatever he may think of me, Colonel Challoner is a man I have a
sincere respect for, and I owe him more than I can ever repay.  He
brought me up after my father's death and started me, like a son, in an
honourable career."  Then his tone grew lighter.  "It's one of my few
virtues that I don't forget my debts."

He made as if he would leave them.  "And now I've kept you some time.
My American friend hasn't turned up yet and I may be here a few days.
Where are you staying?  I'll look you up before I leave."

"We go West to-morrow morning.  Come down and have dinner with us at
the _Windsor_," Bertram said, and when Mrs. Challoner seconded the
request they went up the steps to the platform from which the cable
train started.




CHAPTER IV

CHALLONER RESUMES HIS JOURNEY

Blake, who had known hardship, enjoyed an excellent dinner and the
society of his cousin's wife, whose good opinion he rapidly gained.  He
would not have blamed her had she treated him with cold politeness, but
instead of this she was gentle and quietly cordial.  She had seen his
affection for her husband, and made him feel that he had her sympathy,
without being openly pitiful.  He was quick to appreciate her tact, and
it had its effect on him.  After dinner Mrs. Keith took Blanche away,
and the men found a quiet corner in the rotunda, where they sat talking
for a time.  At length Blake glanced at his watch.

"I have an appointment to keep and must go in a few minutes.  Make my
excuses to your wife; I shall not see her again.  It would be better,
because there's no reason why she should be reminded of anything
unpleasant now.  She's a good woman, Bertram, and I'm glad she didn't
shrink from me.  It would have been a natural thing, but I believe she
was sorry and anxious to make all the allowances she could."

Challoner was silent for a few moments, his face showing signs of
strain.

"I don't deserve her, Dick; the thought of it troubles me.  She doesn't
know me for what I really am."

"Rot!" Blake exclaimed.  "It's your misfortune that you're a
sentimentalist with a habit of exaggerating things; but if you don't
indulge in your weakness too much, you'll go a long way.  You showed
the true Challoner pluck when you smoked out that robbers' nest in the
hills and the pacification of the frontier valley was a very smart
piece of work.  When I read about the business I never thought you
would pull it off with the force you had.  It must have impressed the
authorities, and you'll get something better than your major's
commission before long.  I understand that you're already looked upon
as a coming man."

It was a generous speech, but it was justified, for Challoner had shown
administrative as well as military skill in the affairs his cousin
mentioned.  He, however, still looked troubled, and his colour was
higher than usual.

"Dick," he said, "I wish you would let me give you a lift in the only
way I can.  You know you had never any idea of economy, and I'm afraid
you must find it hard to get along."

"No," said Blake curtly; "it's impossible.  Your father made me a
similar offer and I couldn't consent.  I suppose I have the Blakes'
carelessness about money, but what I get from my mother's little
property keeps me on my feet."  He laughed as he went on: "It's lucky
that your people, knowing the family failing, arranged matters so that
the principal could not be touched.  Besides, I've a plan for adding to
my means."

Bertram dropped the subject.  Dick was often rather casual and
inconsequent, but there was a stubborn vein in him.  When he took the
trouble to think a matter out he was apt to prove immovable.

"Anyway, you will let me know how you get on."

"I think not.  What good would it do?  The Challoners gave me a fair
start and I disappointed them.  While I'm grateful, it's better that
they should have nothing more to do with me.  Think of your career,
keep your wife proud of you--she has good reason for being so, and let
me go my way and drop out of sight again.  I'm a common adventurer and
have been mixed up in matters that fastidious people would shrink from,
which may happen again.  Still, I manage to get a good deal of pleasure
out of the life, which suits me in many ways."  He rose, holding out
his hand.  "Good-bye, Bertram.  We may run across each other somewhere
again."

"I'll always be glad to do so," Challoner said with feeling.  "Be sure
I won't forget you, Dick."

Blake turned away, but when he left the hotel his face was sternly set.
It had cost him something to check his cousin's friendly advances and
break the last connexion between himself and the life he once had led,
but he knew it must be broken, and felt no pang of envious bitterness.
For many years Bertram had been a good and generous friend, and Blake
sincerely wished him well.

The Challoners left by the Pacific Express next morning, and during the
evening Captain Sedgwick stood talking to Millicent, who had stopped a
few moments in passing, near a pillar in the entrance hall of the
hotel.  It was characteristic of him that he wore evening dress, though
a number of the other guests did not, but it displayed his fine,
symmetrical figure.  He was a handsome, soldierly man, with a boldness
of manner which sometimes passed for dash and sometimes prejudiced
fastidious people against him.  Now he was watching Millicent, whom he
admired, with a smile.

"I didn't know you and Mrs. Keith were leaving the _Frontenac_ until
you had gone," he said, and his tone suggested that he wished to
explain why he had not accompanied them.  "You didn't give me an
opportunity of speaking to you until just now, but I noticed that you
looked disturbed at dinner."

"I daresay I did," Millicent answered ruefully.

"I should be distressed to think there was any serious cause for it."

Millicent laughed.  "Mrs. Keith believes it's serious enough, and I'm
in disgrace.  One of the animals bit the bob-cat, and now the
creature's missing."

"A catastrophe!  But does the absurd old woman hold you responsible for
her ferocious pets?"

"I was told to see that her maid took the unfortunate animal to a
veterinary surgeon.  Judkins was frankly mutinous, the hotel porters
were busy with some baggage, and there was not a cab on the rank.  I
told her to put the basket down while she looked for a hack near the
station; and then crossed the street as I saw one coming.  When I got
back the basket had gone, but a boy gave me a note on a scrap of torn
paper.  It said, 'Don't worry; the beast is in safe hands.  You'll get
it back to-night.'"

"Most mysterious!" Sedgwick remarked.  "But it's unpleasant to think
you should have to suffer from the foibles of the creature's owner."

Millicent felt that he was too intimate for their brief acquaintance,
and that in keeping her behind the pillar, where the semi-privacy of
their position suggested confidential relations, he was hardly showing
good taste.  Indeed, she realized that there was often something
lacking in his manners, though he had a certain charm and was much
sought after at the hotel.

"I must go," she said.  "Mrs. Keith wants me."

Sedgwick moved aside with a bow which Millicent thought need not have
been made, and afterwards crossed the floor to the lounge where Mrs.
Chudleigh was waiting.  She was a rather striking, high-coloured woman,
with eyes that had a hard sparkle, and, when her face was in repose,
unusually firm lips.  She wore the latest and most pronounced type of
dinner dress with a few jewels of value, but they gave her no air of
ostentation.

"I thought you were never coming," she said impatiently.  "Why did you
stay talking to that girl so long?"

"Miss Graham?  She's amusing and hasn't many acquaintances in the
hotel.  I'm inclined to think her employer keeps a tight hand on her."

"She's pretty in an unformed way, which is more to the purpose," Mrs.
Chudleigh rejoined.  "I heard the old woman abusing the manager because
one of her ridiculous pets is missing.  But this is of no consequence.
You were going to tell me about your African plans."

"There are good reasons why I should do so.  I haven't forgotten that
my advancement is largely due to you."

Mrs. Chudleigh laughed.  "If you hint as much in public, it may come to
a sudden end.  You ought to know that promotion is now made on merit."

"I'm modest.  My merit's an uncertain quantity, but there's no doubt
about your influence.  I'd sooner trust to it."

The remark was justified.  He had shown courage and ability in
controlling rebellious tribes and settling disputes with French
officials on the frontier of the African colony, but Mrs. Chudleigh had
worked well for him.  She had many friends, men of importance in
political and military circles were to be met in her London
drawing-room, but she was clever and those she obtained favours from
did not always realize how far they had yielded to her powers of
persuasion.

"Never mind that," she said.  "Give me an opportunity and I'll exert my
powers; I'm fond of using them.  Moving other people's hands and making
up their minds for them is a fascinating game, but I must have
something to act upon."

"I understand; we're both ambitious.  Well, I'm in charge of a strip of
frontier territory, but so far I've had the veto of a cautious and
vacillating superior to contend with.  The climate, however, is
breaking down his health, and he can't keep his post much longer; I
want full control.  Now to the north of my malaria-haunted district
there's a belt of dry and valuable country, inhabited by industrious
Mohammedans.  The French have their eye upon it, but our people know
its worth.  Though our respective spheres of influence are badly
defined, neither side has found an excuse for occupying the coveted
region."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Chudleigh.  "You intend to make an excuse."

"If I can, but it will have to be a good one.  That is, we must give
the French no reasonable grounds for objecting; but when we enter the
country in question we stay there."

"It's risky.  If you get into difficulties or the French are clever
enough to spoil your game, you'll be disgraced."

"That's a hazard I recognize.  If I fail, our authorities will disown
me, but it can't be allowed to count."

Mrs. Chudleigh admired his daring, which was what had first attracted
her.  His shortcomings were not hidden, he now and then offended her
more cultivated taste, but he could boldly seize an opportunity and she
thought he would go a long way.  There was force in him.

"But the excuse?" she asked.

"I can't tell you exactly what it will be, but there's an unruly tribe
between us and the territory we want, and they're inclined to give
trouble."  He paused with a meaning smile.  "It may be necessary to
subjugate them, and, if we enter their country, we'll no doubt find
ourselves compelled to move farther north.  Something, however, must be
left to chance.  When one is ready to act, an occasion often presents
itself."

"And the benefit to England?"

"Can't be doubted.  We'll have pushed the frontier back and opened up
trade.  It's a region that's rich in useful products, and as soon as it
is ours new factories will spring up wherever there's a suitable spot
along the rivers.  I've already thought out a route for a light
railway."

Mrs. Chudleigh was satisfied.  She believed in Colonial expansion, but
her views were honest in a sense.  Where her country stood to gain, the
rights of small native races did not count, and she argued, with some
reason, that they were better off under civilized rule; but she would
have intrigued for no scheme that did not further British interests.

"I daresay," she answered thoughtfully, "something can be done."

"I'm content with that, and perhaps we have said enough.  Those rubies
of yours are very fine, but they owe a good deal to their background.
How they gleam on the satiny whiteness they rest upon!"

This was a transgression, but it was one that she could pardon.  The
man's taste was defective, but he had charm and she let him lead her
into intimate personal talk.

In the meanwhile, a group of men were engaged in conversation at the
opposite end of the hall.  One was a sawmill owner; another served the
Hudson's Bay Company in the northern wilds; the third was a young,
keen-eyed American, quick in his movements and concise in speech.

"You're in lumber, aren't you?" he said, taking a strip of wood from
his pocket and handing it to the mill owner.  "What would you call
this?"

"Cedar, sawn from a good log."

"That's so, red cedar.  You know something about that material?"

"I ought to, considering how much of it I've cut."  The lumber man held
up his right hand, from which the two middle fingers were missing.
"Lost those twenty years ago when I worked in my first, one-horse mill,
and I could show you a number of other scars."

"Very well," the American took out another strip.  "The same stuff,
sir.  How would you say it had been treated?"

The sawmiller carefully examined the piece of wood.  "It's not French
polish, but I haven't seen varnish as good as this.  Except that it's
clear and shows the grain, it's more like some rare old Japanese
lacquer."

"It is varnish.  Try to scrape it with your knife."

The other failed to make a mark on it, and the American looked at him
with a smile.

"What would you think of it as a business proposition?"

"If not too dear, it ought to drive every other high-grade varnish off
the market.  Do you make the stuff?"

"We're not ready to sell it yet; can't get hold of the raw material in
quantities, and we're not satisfied about the best flux.  I'll give you
my card."

He did so, and it bore the address of a paint and varnish factory in
Connecticut, with the words, "Represented by Cyrus P. Harding," at the
bottom.

"Well," said the lumber man, "you seem to have got hold of a good
thing, Mr. Harding, but if you're not open to sell it, what has brought
you over here?"

"I'm looking round; we deal in all kinds of paints and miss no chance
of a trade.  Then I'm going way up North-West.  Is there anything doing
in my line there?"

"Not much," said the Hudson's Bay man.  "You may sell a few kegs along
the railroad track, but as soon as you leave it you'll find no paint
required.  The settlers use logs or shiplap and leave them in the raw.
The trip won't pay you."

"Anyhow, I'll see the country and find out something about the
coniferous gums."

"They're soft and resinous.  Don't you get the material you make good
varnish of from the tropics?"

Harding laughed.  "You people don't know your own resources.  There's
most everything a white man needs right on this American continent, if
he'll take the trouble to look for it.  Lumber changes some of its
properties with the location in which it grows, I guess.  We have pines
in Florida, but when you get right up to their northern limit you'll
find a difference."

"There's something in that," the sawmiller agreed.

"If you're going up to their northern limit, you'll see some of the
roughest and wildest country on this earth," remarked the Hudson's Bay
agent.  "It's almost impossible to get through in summer unless you
stick to the rivers and to cross it in winter with the dog-sledges is
pretty tough work."

"So I've heard," said Harding.  "Now I'm going to take a smoke.  Will
you come along?"

They declined, and when he left them one smiled at the other.

"They're smart people across the frontier, but to send a man into the
northern timber-belt looking for paint trade openings or resin they can
make varnish of is about the limit to commercial enterprise."




CHAPTER V

MRS. KEITH GETS A SURPRISE

Harding was taking out a cigar in the vestibule when a man brushed past
him wearing big mittens and a loose black cloak such as old-fashioned
French-Canadians sometimes use.

"Why, Blake!" he cried.  "What have you got on?  Have you been
serenading somebody?"

"I can't stop," the other answered with a grin.  "Open that door for
me, quick."

A porter held back the door, but as Blake slipped through Harding
seized his cloak.

"Hold on; I want a talk with you.  I've been waiting all day."

Blake made an effort to break loose, and as he did so the bob-cat
dropped from beneath his arm and fell, spitting and snarling, to the
ground.  Its fur was torn and matted, tufts were hanging loose, and the
creature had a singularly disreputable and ferocious appearance.  Blake
made an attempt to recapture it, but, evading him easily, it ran along
the floor with a curious hopping gait and disappeared among the
pillars.  Then he turned to his friend with a rueful laugh.

"You see what you've done!  It's gone into the rotunda, where everybody
is."

Harding looked at him critically.  "You seem sober.  What made you get
yourself up like an Italian opera villain and go round the town with a
wild beast under your arm?"

"I'll tell you later.  What we have to do now is to catch the thing."

"It's time," said Harding drily.  "The circus is beginning."

Men's laughter and women's shrieks rose from the entrance hall, which,
in a Canadian hotel, serves as general meeting place and lounge.
Somebody shouted orders in French, there was a patter of running feet,
and then a crash as of chairs being overturned.  Blake sprang in and
Harding, who followed, divided between amusement and impatience, looked
on at an animated scene.  Two porters were chasing the bob-cat which
now and then turned upon them savagely, while several waiters, who kept
at a judicious distance, tried to frighten it into a corner by
flourishing their napkins.  Women fled out of the creature's way, men
hastily moved chairs and tables to give the pursuers room, and some of
the more energetic joined in the chase.  At one end of the room Mrs.
Keith stood angrily giving instructions which nobody attended to.
Millicent, who was close by, looked hot and unhappy, but for all that
her eyes twinkled when a waiter, colliding with a chair, went down with
a crash and the bobcat sped away from him in a series of awkward jumps.

At length, Blake managed to seize it with his mittened hands and after
rolling it in a cloth and giving it to a porter, advanced towards Mrs.
Keith, his face red with exertion but contrite, and the cloak, which
had come unhooked, hanging down from one shoulder.  She glanced at him
in a puzzled, half-disturbed manner when he stopped.

"The cat is safe," he said.  "The man I gave it to will put it with the
other animals.  If he holds it firmly, I don't think it can bite him."

"As I'm told you dropped it in the vestibule, I feel I'm entitled to an
explanation," Mrs. Keith replied in a formal tone, looking hard at him.
"I gave the cat to my maid this morning, sending Miss Graham to see it
delivered to a man in the town, and it disappeared.  How did it come
into your possession?"

"Through no fault of Miss Graham's.  I happened to notice your maid
trying to carry an awkwardly shaped hamper and Miss Graham looking for
a cab.  It struck me the thing was more of a man's errand and I
undertook it."

"It's curious that you knew what the errand was, unless Miss Graham
told you."  Mrs. Keith looked sternly at Millicent, who blushed.  "I
have been led to believe that you made her acquaintance, without my
knowledge, on board the steamer by which we came up."

"That," said Blake respectfully, "is not quite correct.  I was formally
presented to Miss Graham in England some time ago.  However, as I saw a
car coming along St. Catharine's while your maid was looking for a hack
and there was no time to explain, I scribbled a note on a bit of a
letter and gave it to a boy, and then took the cat to a taxidermist."

"To a taxidermist!  Why?"

"It struck me that he ought to know something about the matter.
Anyhow, he was the nearest approach to a vet that I could find."

Mrs. Keith looked at him thoughtfully.  "You seem to have a curious way
of reasoning.  But what did the man say?"

"His first remark was, 'Nom d'une pipe!' and he added something more
which I couldn't catch, but when we became friends he promised to
engage the services of a dog-fancier friend of his."

"You imagined that a dog-fancier would specialize in cats?"

Millicent's eyes twinkled, but Mrs. Keith's face was serious and
Blake's perfectly grave.

"I don't know that I argued the matter out.  To tell the truth, I
undertook the thing on impulse."

"So it seems.  You considered it necessary to make friends with the
French-Canadian taxidermist?"

"Not necessary, perhaps."  Blake appeared to reflect.  "Still, it's a
way of mine, and the fellow interested me by the tragic manner in which
he broke his pipe when I first showed him the cat.  His indignation was
superb."

Mrs. Keith gave him a look of rather grim amusement.  "I see, but you
haven't told me what became of my hamper."

"The hamper was unfortunately smashed.  The car was not allowed to stop
where I wished to get off and I had to jump.  I miscalculated the speed
and fell down, after which, as there was a good deal of traffic, a
transfer wagon ran over the hamper, luckily without hurting the animal
inside.  I left it at a basket shop and that explains the cloak.  My
friend the taxidermist insisted on lending it and his winter gloves to
me.  One looks rather conspicuous walking through the streets with a
bob-cat on one's arm."

Then, to Blake's astonishment, Mrs. Keith broke into a soft laugh.

"I understand it all," she said.  "It was a prank one would expect you
to play.  Though it's a very long time since I saw you, you haven't
changed, Dick.  Now take that ridiculous cloak off and come back and
talk to me."

When Blake returned Millicent had gone and Mrs. Keith noticed the
glance he cast about the room.

"I sent Miss Graham away," she said.  "You have been here some days.
Why didn't you tell me who you were?"

"I'll confess that I knew you.  You have changed much less than I have,
but I wasn't sure you would be willing to acknowledge me."

"Then you were very wrong.  One may be forgiven a first offence and I
never quite agreed with the popular opinion about what you were
supposed to have done.  It wasn't like you; there must have been
something that did not come out."

"Thank you," Blake said quietly.

She gave him a searching glance.  "Can't you say something for
yourself?"

"I think not," he answered.  "The least said, the soonest mended."

"But for the sake of others."

"So far as I know, only one person was much troubled about my disgrace.
I'm thankful my father died before it came."

"Your uncle felt it very keenly.  He was furious when the first news
arrived and refused to believe you were to blame.  Then when Major
Allardyce wrote he scarcely spoke for the rest of the day and it was a
long time before he recovered from the blow; I was staying at
Sandymere.  He loved you, Dick, and I imagined he expected you to do
even better than his son."

Blake mused for a few moments, and Mrs. Keith could not read his
thoughts.  Then he said, "Bertram is a very good fellow and has brains.
Why should his people think less of him because he likes to paint?  But
I've been sorry for the Colonel; more sorry than I've felt for myself."

There was a softness that appealed to Mrs. Keith in his dark-blue eyes.
She had been fond of Dick Blake in his younger days and firmly believed
in him.  Now she could not credit his being guilty of cowardice.

"Well," she said, "you have, I trust, a long life before you, and if
you have been at fault, you must make amends.  There are people who
would be glad to see you reinstated."

He made a sign of grave dissent.  "That can't happen, in the way you
mean.  I closed the door of the old life against my return with my own
hands, and you don't gain distinction, as the Challoners think of it,
in business."

"What business have you gone into?"

Blake's eyes gleamed humorously.  "At present I'm in the paint line."

"Paint!" Mrs. Keith exclaimed.

"Yes, but not common paint.  We use the highest grade of lead and the
purest linseed oil.  Varnish also of unapproachable quality, guaranteed
to stand exposure to any climate.  There's nothing to equal our
products in North America."

"Do you seriously mean that you are going about selling these things?"

"Well," said Blake drily, "I'm trying to do so, and I booked an order
for two kegs yesterday, but it isn't to be paid for until arrival, when
I shall not be here.  Can't I induce you to give us a trial?  Your
house must need painting now and then, and we'll ship you the stuff to
Liverpool in air-tight drums.  Once you have tried it you'll use
nothing else."

Mrs. Keith laughed.  "Dick, you're a marvel and I'm glad adversity
hasn't soured you; but you won't make enough to keep you in neckties at
any business you take up.  It's ludicrous to think of your running
about with paint samples, but there's something pathetic in it that
spoils my amusement."  Her face softened and she changed her tone.
"I'm a rather rich old woman, Dick, and your mother was a very dear
friend of mine.  You must let me help you to something better."

"Thank you," he answered with a flush.  "But you can't give me money.
It's curious that several of my friends have wanted to do so--first the
Colonel, then Bertram, and now you.  Not flattering, is it?  Suggests
that you doubt my talents, or that I look like a deserving object of
charity."

"You're incorrigible.  It was the Blakes' misfortune that they could
never be serious, but I admire your pluck."

"We have our failings, but I'm boring you and I'll come back by and by
if you'll allow me.  My American partner has been waiting for a word
with me since this morning."

"And you kept him waiting?  That was a true Blake.  But go to the man
and then tell the hotel people to give you places at my table.  I want
to see your friend."

"He'll feel as honoured as I do," Blake said, and left her.

Harding was leaning back in his chair in the smoking-room with a frown
on his face when Blake joined him.  He had a nervous alert look and was
dressed with fastidious neatness.

"You have come along at last," he remarked in an ironical tone.  "Feel
like getting down to business or shall we put it off again?"

"Sorry I couldn't come earlier," Blake replied.  "Somehow or other I
couldn't get away.  Things kept turning up to occupy me."

"It's a way they seem to have.  Your trouble is that you're too
diffuse; you spread yourself out too much.  You want to fix your mind
on one thing and that will have to be business as soon as we leave
here."

"I dare say you're right.  My interest's apt to wander; but if you take
advantage of every opportunity that offers, you get most out of life.
Concentration's good, but if you concentrate on a thing and then don't
get it, you begin to think what a lot of other things you've missed."

Harding made a gesture of resignation.  "Guess you must be humoured;
I'll wait until you're through.  That's a nice girl you stole the
bob-cat from, but if she were a sister of mine, I'd choke off that army
man who's been trotting round after her most of the day."

"What's the matter with Captain Sedgwick?"

"He has a greedy eye.  He'll play any game he goes into for his own
hand.  Not an unusual plan, but there's generally a code of rules and
if it's going to pay him, Sedgwick will break them.  Anyhow, as it
looks as if Mrs. Chudleigh had him earmarked, why can't he let the girl
alone?"

Blake, who had taken a protective interest in Millicent, was somewhat
disturbed, but would not admit it.

"Oh!" he said, "our army men aren't ascetics, but I dare say the
fellow's a harmless philanderer, and you're a bit of a Puritan."

"I'm married and don't forget it," snapped Harding.  "Marianna--that's
Mrs. Harding--is living in a two-room tenement, making her own dresses
and cooking on a gasoline stove, so's to give me my chance of finding
the gum.  And I'm here in an expensive hotel, where I've made about
five dollars commission in three days and written our people several
folios about the iniquities of the Canadian tariff, which is all I've
done.  We have got to pull out as soon as possible.  Did you get any
information from the Hudson's Bay man?"

"I learned something about our route through the timber-belt and the
kind of camp outfit we'll want; the temperature's often fifty below in
winter.  Then I was in Revillons', looking at their cheaper furs, and
in a store where they supply especially light hand-sledges, snowshoes,
and patent cooking cans.  We must have these things good, and I
estimate they'll cost six hundred dollars."

"Six hundred dollars will make a big hole in our capital."

"I'm afraid so, but we can't run the risk of freezing to death, and we
may have to spend all winter in the wilds."

"That's true; I don't go back until I find the gum."

Harding's tone was resolute, and when he leaned forward, musing, with
knitted brows, Blake, knowing his story, gave him a sympathetic glance.
He had entered the paint factory when a very young man and had studied
chemistry in his scanty spare time with the object of understanding his
business better.  He found the composition of varnishes an interesting
subject, and as the best gums employed came from the tropics and were
expensive he began to experiment with the exudations from American
trees.  His employers hinted that he was wasting his time, since the
limits to the use of these products were already known, but Harding
continued, trying to test a theory that the texture and hardness of the
gums might depend upon climatic temperature.  By chance a resinous
substance which had come from the far North fell into his hands, and he
found that when combined with an African gum it gave astonishing
results.  Before this happened, however, his employers had sent him out
on the road, and as they were sceptical about his discovery and he
would not take them fully into his confidence, they merely promised to
keep his place open for a time.  Now he was going to search for the gum
at his own expense.

"We'll order the outfit in the morning," he said presently, glancing
towards a man who sat across the room.  "Do you think that fellow
Clarke can hear?  I've a notion that he's been watching us."

"Does it matter?"

"You must bear in mind that we have a valuable secret, and I understand
he lives somewhere in the country we are going through."

As he spoke the Hudson's Bay agent came in with the sawmiller, who said
to the man whom Harding suspected of listening, "That was good stuff
you gave me a dose of.  It fixed my ague, though I had the shakes bad
last night."

Clarke rose and strolled with them to a seat nearer where Blake and
Harding sat.  "It's a powerful drug and must be used with discretion.
If you feel you need it, I'll give you another dose.  It's an Indian
remedy and I learned the secret up in the timber-belt, but I spent some
time experimenting before I was satisfied about its properties."

Sedgwick, who was passing, stopped and lighted a cigar.  "Then you get
on with Indians?"

"I do," Clarke said shortly.  "It isn't difficult when you grasp their
point of view."

"Then your experience doesn't tally with mine and I know something
about the primitive races.  Their point of view is generally elusive."

"I can credit it."  Clarke's tone was sneering.  "You people don't try
to understand them; you can't come down to it.  Standing firm on your
colour prejudice and official traditions, you expect the others to
agree with you.  It's an indefensible policy."  He turned to the
Hudson's Bay agent.  "You ought to know something about the matter.  On
the whole, the Hudson's Bay treat the Indians well; there was a
starving lad you picked up suffering from snow-blindness near Jack-pine
river and sent back safely to his tribe."

"That's so, but I can't tell how you knew.  I don't remember having
talked about the thing; and my clerk has never left the factory.  There
wasn't another white man within a week's journey."

"I heard, all the same.  You had afterwards some better furs than usual
brought in."

The agent looked surprised.  "Some of these people are grateful, but
although I've been in the country twelve years I don't pretend to
understand them."

"They understand you.  The proof of it is that you can keep your
factory open in a district where furs are rather scarce and have had
very few mishaps.  You can take that as a compliment."

There was something significant in Clarke's tone which Blake remarked,
while Sedgwick, feeling that he was being left out, strolled on.

"Then you know the Jack-pine?" the agent asked.

"Pretty well, though it's not easy to reach.  I came down it one winter
from the Wild-goose hills.  I'd put in the winter with a band of
Stonies."

"The Northern Stonies?  Did you find them easy to get on with?"

"They knew some interesting things," Clarke answered drily.  "I went
there to study."

"Ah!" said the agent.  "What plain folk, for want of a better name,
call the occult.  But it's fortunate there's a barred door between
white men and the Indian's mysticism."

"It has been opened to a white man once or twice."

"Just so.  He stepped through into the darkness and never came out
again.  There was an instance I could mention."

"Civilized folk would have no use for him afterwards," Harding broke
in.  "We want sane, normal men on this continent.  Neurotics, hoodoos
and fakirs are worse than a plague; there's contagion in their fooling."

"How would you define them?  Those who don't fit in with your ideas of
the normal?"

"I know a clean, straight man when I meet him and that's enough for me."

"I imagine that cleverer people are now and then deceived," said
Clarke, who moved away.

"That's a man I want to keep clear of," Harding remarked to Blake.
"There's something wrong about him; he's not wholesome."  He rose.
"It's a fine night; let's walk up the mountain."




CHAPTER VI

HARDING GROWS CONFIDENTIAL

Next morning Blake and his partner breakfasted at Mrs. Keith's table,
and during the afternoon drove up the mountain with her and one or two
others.  The city was unpleasantly hot and the breeze that swept its
streets blew clouds of sand and cement about, for Montreal is subject
to fits of feverish constructional activity and on every other block
buildings were being torn down and replaced by larger ones of concrete
and steel.  Leaving its outskirts, the carriage climbed the road which
winds in loops through the shade of overhanging trees.  Wide views of
blue hills and shining river opened up through gaps in the foliage; the
air had lost its humid warmth and grew fresh and invigorating.

Reaching the level summit, they dismissed the hacks and found a seat
near the edge of a steep, wooded slope.  The strip of tableland is not
remarkably picturesque, but it is thickly covered with trees, and one
can look out across a vast stretch of country traversed by the great
river.  By and by the party scattered and Mrs. Keith was left with
Harding.  They were, in many ways, strangely assorted companions, the
elderly English lady accustomed to the smoother side of life, and the
young American who had struggled hard from boyhood, but they were
sensible of a mutual lilting.  Mrs. Keith had a trace of the grand
manner, which had its effect on Harding; he showed a naive frankness
she found attractive.  Besides, his talk and conduct were marked by a
laboured correctness which amused and pleased her.  She thought he had
taken some trouble to acquire it.

"So you had to leave your wife at home," she said presently.  "Wasn't
that rather hard for both of you?"

"It was hard enough," he replied with feeling.  "What made it worse was
that I hadn't many dollars to leave with her, but I had to go.  The man
who will take no chances has to stay at the bottom."

"Then, if it's not an impertinence, your means are small?"

"Your interest is a compliment, ma'am, and what you say is true.  We
had two hundred dollars when we were married.  You wouldn't consider
that much to begin on."

"No," said Mrs. Keith, whose marriage settlement had made over to her
valuable property.  "Still, of course, it depends upon what one
expects.  After all; I think my poorest friends have been happiest."

"We had only one trouble; making the dollars go round," Harding told
her with grave confidence.  "It was worst in the hot weather when other
people could move out of town, and it hurt me to see Marianna looking
white and tired.  I used to wish I could send her to one of the
summer-boarders' farms up in the hills, though I guess she wouldn't
have gone without me.  She's brave, and when my chance came she saw
that I must take it.  She sent me off with smiles, but I knew what they
cost."

"She will smile more brightly when you come back, and courage to face a
hard task is a great gift.  So you consider this trip to the North-West
your opportunity?  You must expect to sell a good deal of paint."

Harding looked up with a sudden twinkle.  "I'll own to you, ma'am, that
I've another object.  The company will pay my commission on any orders
I get at the settlements, but this is my venture, not theirs.  I'm
going up into the wilds to look for a valuable raw material."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Keith.  "I suspected something like this.  It's
difficult to imagine Dick Blake's going into anything so sober and
matter of fact as the paint business.  Have you known him long?"

"I met him a year ago, and we spent two or three weeks together."

"But was that long enough to learn much about him?  Do you know his
history?"

Harding gave her a direct glance.  "Do you?"

"Yes," she said; "I gather that he has taken you into his confidence."

"Now you set me free to talk.  When I asked him to be my partner, he
told me why he had left the army.  That was the square thing, and it
made me keen on getting him."

"Then you were not deterred by what you learned?"

"Not at all.  I knew it was impossible that Blake should have done what
he was charged with."

"I thought so, but I know him better than you do," Mrs. Keith said
gravely.  "What made you jump to the conclusion?"

"You shall judge whether I hadn't good reason.  I was in one of our
lake ports, collecting accounts, and Blake had come with me.  It was
late at night when I saw my last customer at his hotel, and I had a
valise half-full of silver currency and bills.  Going back along the
waterfront where the second-rate saloons are, I thought that somebody
was following me.  The lights didn't run far along the street, I hadn't
seen a patrol, and as I was passing a dark block a man jumped out.  I
got a blow on the shoulder that made me sore for a week, but the fellow
had missed my head with the sandbag, and I slipped behind a telegraph
post before he could strike again.  Still, things looked ugly.  The man
who'd been following came into sight, and I was between the two.  Then
Blake ran up the street, and I was mighty glad to see him.  He had two
men to tackle, and one had a sandbag, while I guess the other had a
pistol."

"But you were there.  That made it equal."

"No," said Harding.  "I'd been near knocked out with the sandbag and
could hardly keep my feet.  Besides, I'd my employers' money in the
valise, and it was my business to take care of it."

Mrs. Keith made a sign of agreement.  "I beg your pardon.  You were
right."

"Blake got after the first thief like a panther.  He was so quick I
didn't quite see what happened, but the man reeled half-way across the
street before he fell, and when his partner saw Blake coming for him he
ran.  Then, when the trouble was over, a patrol came along, and he and
Blake helped me back to my hotel.  Knowing I had the money, he'd got
uneasy when I was late."  Harding paused and looked meaningly at his
companion.  "Later I was asked to believe that the man who went for
those two toughs with no weapon but his fists ran away under fire.  The
thing didn't seem possible."

"And so you trust Blake, in spite of his story?"

"The North-West is a hard country in winter and I may find myself in a
tight place before I've finished my search," Harding answered with
grave quietness.  "But if that happens I'll have a partner I can trust
my life to beside me.  What's more, Mrs. Harding, who's a judge of
character, feels I'm safe with him."

Mrs. Keith was moved; his respect for his wife's judgment and his faith
in his comrade appealed to her.

"Though my opinion of Blake is not generally held, I believe you are
right," she said.  "And now tell me something about your journey."

While they talked, Millicent and Blake sat in the sunshine on the slope
of the hill.  Beneath them a wide landscape stretched away towards the
Ottawa valley, the road to the lonely North, and the girl, who had
never left the confines of civilization, felt a longing to see the
trackless wilds.  The distance drew her.

"Your way lies up yonder," she said.  "I suppose you are thinking about
it.  Are you looking forward to the trip?"

"Not so much as Harding is," Blake replied.  "He's a bit of an
enthusiast, and I've been in the country before.  It's a singularly
rough one, and I anticipate our meeting with more hardships than
dollars."

"Which doesn't seem to daunt you."

"No," said Blake; "not to a great extent.  Hardship is not a novelty to
me, and I don't think I'm avaricious.  The fact is, I'm a good deal
better at spending than gathering."

"It's undoubtedly easier," the girl rejoined.  "But while I like Mr.
Harding I shouldn't consider him a type of the romantic adventurer."

"You're right in a sense and wrong in another.  Harding's out for
dollars, and I believe he'll get them if they're to be had.  He'll
avoid adventures so far as he can, but if there's trouble to be faced,
it won't stop him.  Then he has left a safe employment, broken up his
home, and set off on this long journey for the sake of a woman who is
trying to hold out on a very few dollars in a couple of poor rooms
until his return.  He's taking risks which I believe may be serious in
order that she may have a brighter and fuller life.  Is there no
romance in this?"

What Blake said about his comrade's devotion to his wife appealed to
the girl.  Marriage had apparently not lessened his tender thought for
her, and Millicent wondered whether she was capable of inspiring such a
feeling.  She had found life hard, and so far had shrunk from the few
men who had cultivated her acquaintance.  Indeed, she felt contaminated
as she remembered the advances made by one.

"On the face of it, looking for openings in the paint business doesn't
seem to be a very risky matter," she suggested.

"It depends a good deal on how it's done," Blake answered with a laugh.
"With Harding, a business opening is a comprehensive term."

Millicent mused for a moment or two.  She liked Blake and he improved
upon acquaintance.  He had a whimsical humour and a dash of reckless
gallantry.  It was not to his credit that he had frequented her
father's house, and he was supposed to be in disgrace, but she had
cause to know that he was compassionate and chivalrous.

"Though you have not been with us long, we shall be duller when you
have gone," she told him.

"Well," he said, "in a sense that's nice to hear, but it's with mixed
feelings one leaves friends behind."  His tone grew serious.  "I've
lost some good ones."

"I can imagine your making others easily, but haven't you retained one
or two?  I think, for instance, you could count on Mrs. Keith."

"Ah!" he said, "I owe a good deal to her.  A little charity, such as
she shows, goes a very long way."

Millicent did not answer, and he watched her as she sat looking out
into the distance with grave brown eyes.  Her face was gentle; he
thought there was pity for him in it and felt strongly drawn to her,
but he remembered that he was a man with a tainted name and must travel
a lonely road.  She was conscious of his scrutiny, but took no offence
at it.

"Perhaps we had better change our place," she said by and by.  "The sun
is rather strong now the wind has gone."

Some of the others joined them, and soon afterwards they walked down
the winding road to the city; when they sat outside the hotel after
dinner Blake asked Harding if he had enjoyed the afternoon.

"I did," said Harding with earnestness.  "I'd only one regret; that
Mrs. Harding wasn't here to share it with me.  Your friends are
charming ladies of a stamp Marianna and I so far haven't had much
chance to meet."  Then his face grew very resolute as he added: "But
she shall have her opportunity.  If things go right with us she'll get
her share of all that's best in life--and, with that at stake, we have
to make things right."

Two days later Harding got some letters he had been waiting for, and as
there was now nothing to keep them in Montreal, Blake said good-bye to
Mrs. Keith next morning.  Though she was gracious to him he felt a
strong sense of disappointment at finding her alone, but when he was
going out he met Millicent in the hall.  She wore her hat and the flush
of colour in her face indicated that she had been walking fast.

"I'm glad I didn't miss you, but I had an errand to do," she said.
"You are going now; by the Vancouver express?"

"Yes," said Blake, stopping beside a pillar; "I was feeling rather
gloomy until I saw you.  Harding's at the station, and it's depressing
to set off on a long journey feeling that nobody minds your going."

"Mrs. Keith will mind," said Millicent.  "I'm sure she was very
friendly and gave you her good wishes."

Blake looked at her with a smile.  "Somehow they didn't seem enough.  I
think I wanted yours."

She coloured, but met his glance.  "Then," she said, "you have them.  I
haven't forgotten what happened one evening in London, and I wish you a
safe journey and success."

"Thank you," he answered with feeling.  "It will be something to
remember that you have wished me well."  Then as his eyes rested upon
her he forgot that he was a marked man.  She looked very fresh and
desirable; there was a hint of regret and pity in her face and a trace
of shyness in her manner.  "I suppose I can't ask you to think of me
now and then; it would be too much," he went on.  "But won't you give
me something of yours, some trifle to keep as a memento."

Millicent hesitated and then took a tiny bunch of flowers from the lace
at the neck of her white dress.  "Will these do?" she asked, and added
with a smile: "They won't last very long."

"They will last a long time, well taken care of, but what you said had
a sting.  Did you mean that you wouldn't give me anything more
enduring?"

"No," she said shyly, "not that altogether.  I think I meant that they
would last as long as you might care to remember our acquaintance."

Blake bowed.  "My memory's good.  When I come back I will show you your
gift as a token."

"But I shall be in England then."

"I bore that in mind.  It is not very far off, and I'm a wanderer."

"Well," she said with faint confusion, "unless you hurry you will miss
your train.  Good-bye and good fortune!"

He took the hand she gave him and held it a moment.  "I wonder whether
your last wish will ever be realized, If so, I shall come to thank you,
even in England."

Then he turned and went out with hurried steps, wondering what had led
him to break through the reserve he had prudently determined to
maintain.  What he had said might mean nothing, but it might mean much.
He had seen Millicent Graham for a few minutes in her father's house,
and afterwards met her every day during the week spent in Montreal, but
brief as their friendship had been, he had yielded to her charm.  Had
he been free to seek her love he would eagerly have done so, but he was
not free.  He was an outcast, engaged in a desperate attempt to repair
his fortune.  Miss Graham knew this, and had probably taken his remarks
for what they were worth as a piece of sentimental gallantry, but
something in her manner suggested a doubt and the trouble was that he
did not wish her to regard them in this light.  It looked as if he had
made a fool of himself, but he had promised to show her the flowers
again some day, and he carefully placed them in his pocket book.

The train was ready to start when he found Harding impatiently waiting
him on the platform and a few moments later the long cars were swiftly
rolling west.




CHAPTER VII

MRS. CHUDLEIGH GATHERS INFORMATION

It was a fine morning when Mrs. Keith sat on the saloon deck of a river
boat steaming with the ebb tide down the St. Lawrence.  The terraced
heights of Quebec had faded astern; ahead a blaze of sunshine rested on
the river, up which a big liner with crowded decks and her smoke-trail
staining the clear blue sky moved majestically.  To starboard dark
pinewoods, with here and there a sawmill stack, were faintly marked
upon the lofty bank; to port rose rugged hills with wooden villages at
their feet.  The light wind that rippled the blue water was pleasantly
cool, and Mrs. Keith, laying down the book she had been reading, looked
about with languid enjoyment.

"I suppose I'm neglecting my opportunities, but this is very delightful
and I don't think they have anything finer than the river in Canada,"
she said.  "Its width impresses one; the French villages with their
church spires are so picturesque--I wonder how many churches there are
in this part of the country.  One sees them everywhere."

"You were urged to see the Ontario forests and the prairie," Millicent
remarked.

"One cannot do everything, and I'm not insatiable.  I'm getting too old
to stand the shaking in the hot and dusty cars, and I can't accustom
myself to going to bed in public, without undressing.  No doubt, it's a
matter of prejudice, but I've been used to more room for taking my
clothes off than they give you behind the flapping curtain."

Millicent laughed as she remembered their experiences during a journey
on a crowded express.

"Getting up is worse," she said.  "However, they told us it was very
pretty and generally cool at Saguenay.  Then you'll have somebody to
talk to, as Mrs. Chudleigh is coming.  But didn't she make up her mind
rather suddenly?"

"I thought so, since she didn't speak of going until I sent you for the
tickets.  Still, Sedgwick was sent to Ottawa, where she doesn't know
anybody, which may have had something to do with it."

Millicent, who looked very pretty in her light summer dress as she
leaned back in a deckchair, did not reply.  Sun and wind had brought a
fine warm colour into her face, but her brown eyes were grave, for
there was a point upon which she must try to form a correct judgment
and she distrusted her inexperience.  She was young and had a natural
love of pleasure, as well as a certain longing for excitement and a
willingness to take a risk which she had inherited from her gambling
father.  Mrs. Keith had prevented her indulging these tendencies, and
the girl, thrust for the most part into the society of older people,
suffered at times from a feeling of depressing monotony.

Then she had met Captain Sedgwick, who paid her rather marked
attention, at Quebec, and at first had been attracted by the handsome
soldier and flattered by his singling her out among women of higher
station and maturer beauty; but the attraction did not last long.
There was a vein of sound sense in Millicent, and when she tested
Sedgwick by it, he did not ring true, and when Mrs. Chudleigh openly
claimed him as her property she acquiesced.  Afterwards she met Blake
on board the steamer and the gratitude and admiration which a
chivalrous act of his had roused suddenly revived.  Moreover she was
sorry for him and felt that he had been unjustly blamed, while, though
it was generally hidden by his careless manner, she thought she saw in
him a strong sincerity.  Now she wondered whether she was foolish in
letting her thoughts dwell on him, and if he would soon forget her.
Recalling his words when he said good-bye she knew he had been stirred,
but before this she had been conscious of a certain restraint in his
manner which had only broken down at the last moment.  By and by Mrs.
Keith disturbed her reflections.

"It looks as if we were to be favoured with Mrs. Chudleigh's society,"
she remarked with ironical amusement.  "Mine appears to have become
more valuable during the last few days."

Millicent saw Mrs. Chudleigh moving towards them, followed by a steward
carrying a folding chair and a maid who brought a book, a bunch of
flowers, an ornamental leather bag, and several other odds and ends.
Mrs. Chudleigh was elaborately attired, but the large plumed hat and
dress cut in the extreme of the current fashion became her.  She made a
stately progress along the deck with her burdened attendants in her
train, and it took a few minutes to arrange her belongings to her
satisfaction.  Then she sank into the big chair with marked grace of
movement and smiled at Mrs. Keith.

"A delightful morning.  I ought to have been writing letters, but the
sunshine brought me out."

Mrs. Keith agreed and Mrs. Chudleigh went on: "I have enjoyed this
visit greatly and find Canada a most interesting country.  In fact, I
wish I could stay another month or two, but, of course, when one has
duties."

As Mrs. Chudleigh had neither husband nor children, Margaret Keith
wondered what her duties were, unless she considered the taking a part
in a round of social amusements as such.

"After all," she remarked, "I imagine that one doesn't see very much of
the real Canada from the _Frontenac_ or a big hotel in Montreal."

"True," said Mrs. Chudleigh.  "I must confess that I didn't come out to
study the country, though I'm charmed with all I've seen.  I'm afraid I
belong to a frivolous set and find a change refreshing.  Then several
old friends of mine were going to take a part in the celebrations at
Quebec--Captain Sedgwick among others."

"Is Captain Sedgwick a very old friend?" Mrs. Keith asked, willing to
give the other the lead she seemed to wish for.

"Oh, yes; I met him first as a subaltern in India, when he was very raw
and troubled by a seriousness he has since grown out of, but I thought
he would make his mark."

Mrs. Keith pondered the explanation.  She could not imagine her
companion's patronizing a callow young lieutenant, but this was not
important.  Admitting that a hint might have been intended for
Millicent's benefit, Mrs. Chudleigh's boldness in laying claim to the
man by suggesting that she had come out for his sake was puzzling.  It
was not in good taste, but although Mrs. Chudleigh's position was
assured, there was something of the audacity of the adventuress about
her.  Margaret Keith, however, had no admiration for Sedgwick, whom she
thought of as second-rate, and she was glad to believe that Millicent
did not wish to dispute the woman's right to him.

"Are you going home soon?" she asked.

"Before long, I think.  There is a round of visits I have promised to
make and I may stay some time with the Fosters in Shropshire near
Colonel Challoner's place.  I believe he is a friend of yours."

"He is.  Have you met him?"

"Once; I found him charming.  A very fine, old-fashioned gentleman, and
I understand a famous soldier.  Somebody told me he never quite got
over his nephew's disgrace and seemed to think it reflected upon the
whole family.  Very foolish, of course, but one can admire his sense of
honour."

Mrs. Keith began to understand why her companion had sought her.  She
wished to speak about Richard Blake and Mrs. Keith was forced to
acquiesce, since he had been seen in her company.

"I suppose you know the nephew was in Montreal," she said.

"To tell the truth, I do.  I saw him talking to Bertram Challoner, whom
I met in London, and the family likeness struck me.  Then I saw his
name in the hotel register."

"No doubt you studied him after that.  What opinion did you form?"

Mrs. Chudleigh gave her a look of thoughtful candour.  "I was puzzled
and interested.  I don't know him, but he did not look the man to run
away."

"He is not," Mrs. Keith declared.  "I knew him as a boy, and even then
he was marked by reckless daring.  What's more, I noticed very little
change in him."

"It's strange."  Mrs. Chudleigh's tone was sympathetically grave.  "I
feel much as you do.  After all, it may have been one of the affairs
about which the truth never quite comes out."

"What do you wish to suggest by that?"

"Nothing in particular; I've no means of forming an accurate
conclusion.  But the regimental honour was threatened and a scapegoat
needed.  A mistake may have been made by somebody of greater
importance.  One hears of some curious things."

"That's true," Mrs. Keith drily agreed.  "I believe in Dick Blake, but
it must be admitted that he made no defence."

Mrs. Chudleigh pondered this.  "One meets men capable of making a great
sacrifice, though they're by no means numerous.  I suppose Colonel
Challoner really felt it a heavy blow?"

"Those who know him can't doubt it, though he never speaks of the
matter."

"It must have been a shock.  Apart from whatever affection he had for
his nephew, there was, in a sense, the stigma reflected upon
himself--an old man who has bravely won distinction and retains some
influence!  I'm told he has friends in administrative circles and that
his opinion on Indian subjects still carries weight."

"I believe so," said Mrs. Keith.  "He certainly holds his opinions
firmly, and was once looked upon as an authority on frontier defence.
Indeed, he gave up his command because he could not get some drastic
change which events subsequently proved needful adopted.  His honesty
is remembered by men who hold him in esteem."

"All you have said bears out my impression of him.  I must renew our
acquaintance when I am in Shropshire.  Are you staying here long?"

Mrs. Keith was glad to change the subject, but while they talked a
steward appeared with a letter for Millicent, which he explained had
been sent on board the steamer at Quebec.  As the girl laid down the
opened envelope Mrs. Chudleigh recognized Sedgwick's writing and her
face grew contemptuously hard.  Then she laughed and started a
different topic, which she continued for a time.  When she went away,
Mrs. Keith turned to Millicent.

"I wonder whether I have told her too much, though it's hard to see
what use she can make of it.  Innocent or not, Dick Blake is a
favourite of mine and when I speak of him I'm apt to be unguarded.  Of
course, it's obvious that she joined us on purpose to talk about him."

"One would have imagined it was Captain Sedgwick.  She dragged him in
rather pointedly."

"Oh! no.  That was by the way, and perhaps intended to put me off the
scent.  She's a scheming woman."

"But she has not learned much from you."

"She has learned two things," Mrs. Keith answered thoughtfully.
"First, that I don't believe Dick Blake failed in his duty; and,
secondly, that Colonel Challoner has some influence.  I think she was
particularly interested in the latter point.  I've been incautious and
let my tongue run away with me."

Then she took up her book while Millicent read her letter.  Though
young and to some extent inexperienced, her judgment was generally
sound, and she had come to see how Sedgwick really regarded her.  She
had pleased his eye, and he was a man who would boldly grasp at what
delighted him, but love would not be permitted to interfere with his
ambitions.  He wrote in a tone of forced and insincere sentiment, and
his words brought a blush into Millicent's face as well as a rather
bitter smile into her eyes.  By and by she tore the sheet into pieces
and dropped them over the steamer's rail.  That affair was ended.

As the fragments of paper fluttered astern Mrs. Keith looked up.  "You
are treating somebody's letter very unceremoniously."

"Perhaps I am," said Millicent.  "It's from Captain Sedgwick."

"Ah!" exclaimed Mrs. Keith.  "Has he anything of interest to say?"

"He mentions that he is going back to Africa sooner than he expected
because the officer above him has suffered so much from the climate
that he has asked to be relieved of his post.  Captain Sedgwick
believes this will give him a chance of advancement."

"Then I've no doubt he'll make the most of it.  I suppose he doesn't
waste much pity on his unfortunate chief?  The man's personal interest
stands first with him."

"Isn't that the usual thing with men?"

"There are exceptions.  Colonel Challoner, for instance, threw up his
career when he found he was forced to act against his convictions, and
I've a suspicion that another man I know made as great a sacrifice.
However, Sedgwick will make every effort to get the vacant post, and I
wonder whether he told Mrs. Chudleigh how matters stood.  She may have
had a letter before you did."

Millicent knew her employer's penetration, but did not understand the
drift of her remarks.

"I dare say he wrote to her.  She told us they were old friends.  But
why should it interest you?"

"It does," Mrs. Keith rejoined.  "I have a habit of putting things
together and drawing my conclusions, though, of course, I'm now and
then mistaken.  Whether I'm right or not in the present instance time
will show, but I must try to watch the woman when we go home."  Then
she added sharply: "As you have torn it up, you don't mean to answer
Sedgwick's letter?"

"No," said Millicent, with a trace of colour; "I don't think it needs a
reply."

Mrs. Keith made a sign of agreement.  "On the whole," she said
pointedly, "I should imagine that to be a wise decision."

On reaching Saguenay, Mrs. Keith spent the first morning sitting
outside her hotel.  Rugged mountains with dark belts of pines
straggling up their sides were spread about her, but she gave the wild
grandeur of the landscape scanty attention as she consulted the
engagement book in her hand.  It contained a list of the friends she
wished to entertain and the visits she had thought of making in England
during the winter, and she wondered which could be shortened and whom
she could put off, because it might be desirable to spend some time in
Shropshire.

Margaret Keith was a strong-willed woman who had led a busy life, but
now, when she had resolved to retire into the background and rest, it
looked as if she might again be forced to take an active part in
affairs.  She had enjoyed her Canadian trip, but during the last week
or two it had begun to lose its interest, and she was conscious of a
call to be up and doing.  She suspected Mrs. Chudleigh, she doubted
Sedgwick, and she was disturbed by the way the unfortunate affair on
the Indian frontier had cropped up again.  Somehow, she felt Colonel
Challoner's peace was threatened, which could not be permitted.  For
many years she had cherished a warm liking for him, and long ago, when
he was a young lieutenant, she could have made him hers.  Family
arrangements, complicated by the interests of landed property, had,
however, stood in the way.  Challoner was not free to marry as he
pleased; he had been taught that the desire of the individual must be
subordinated to the welfare of the line, and when he first met Margaret
Keith, who was beautiful then, it was too late for him to rebel.  She
let him go, but he had always had a place in her heart, and now they
were firm and trusted friends.

During her stay at Saguenay, Mrs. Chudleigh made two or three attempts
to extract some further information about the Challoners but without
success, and one day, soon after she had left, Mrs. Keith sent
Millicent for a list of steamer sailings.

"This place is very pretty, but we have been here some time and I'm
beginning to think of home," she said.

"One of the Empresses sails next week," said Millicent, returning with
the card.  "Mr. Gordon told me this morning that Mrs. Chudleigh went in
the _Salmatian_ the day before he left Quebec."

"Did she?" Mrs. Keith rejoined.  "Well, perhaps you had better write to
the Montreal office about our berths."  Then, for the call had grown
clearer, she smiled as the girl went away, and added: "It might be
wiser to keep the woman in sight."




CHAPTER VIII

THE PRAIRIE

A strong breeze swept the wide plain, blowing fine sand about, when
Blake plodded beside the jaded Indian pony that drew his Red-river
cart.  It was loaded with preserved provisions, camp stores, and winter
clothes, and he had bought it and the pony because that seemed cheaper
than paying for transport.  The settlement for which he was bound
stands near the northern edge of the great sweep of grass which
stretches across central Canada, and means of communication between it
and the outer world were scarce.  Harding, accordingly, had agreed to
the purchase of the animal with the idea of selling it afterwards to
one of the settlers.

Since leaving the railroad they had spent four days upon the trail,
which sometimes ran plain before them, marked by dints of wheels among
the wiry grass, and sometimes died away, leaving them at a loss in a
wilderness of sand and short poplar scrub, through which Blake steered
by compass.  Now it was late in the afternoon and the men were tired of
battling with the wind which buffeted their sunburned faces with sharp
sand.  They were crossing one of the high steppes of the middle prairie
towards the belt of pines and muskegs which divides it from the barrens
of the North.  The broad stretch of fertile loam, where prosperous
wooden towns are rising fast among the wheatfields, lay to the south of
them, and the arid tract they journeyed through had so far no
attraction for even the adventurous homestead pre-emptor.

They found it a bleak and cheerless country, crossed by the ravines of
a few sluggish creeks, the water of which was unpleasant to drink, and
dotted at long intervals by ponds bitter with alkali.  In places,
stunted poplar bluffs cut against the sky, but, for the most part,
there was only a rolling waste of dingy grass.  The trail was heavy,
the wheels sank deep in sand as they climbed a low rise, and, to make
things worse, the rounded, white-edged clouds which had scudded across
the sky since morning were gathering in threatening masses.  This had
happened every afternoon, but now and then the cloud ranks had broken,
to pour out a furious deluge and a blaze of lightning.  Harding
anxiously studied the sky.

"I guess we're up against another thunderstorm," he said.  "My opinion
of the mid-continental climate is singularly mean, but I'd put this
strip of Canada near the limit.  Our Texan northers are fierce when
they come along, but here it blows all the time."

"We'll make camp, if you like; I don't feel very fresh," Blake replied.

"Not here," snapped Harding, "Where I stop I sleep, and I've no use for
sheltering under the cart.  Last time we tried it the pony stampeded
and the wheel went over my foot.  The tent's no good; you'd want a
chain to stop its blowing away.  We'll go on until we bring up to lee
of a big, solid bluff."

"Very well," Blake agreed.  "I daresay we ought to find one in the
hollow we got a glimpse of from the last rise, but we haven't had to
put up with much discomfort yet."

"It's a matter of opinion; you haven't limped forty miles on a bad
foot, but I'm not complaining," Harding rejoined, "In fact, I've most
been happy since we left the depot.  It's something to feel that you
have started; doing nothing takes the sand out of me."

Blake had once or twice suggested that his comrade should ride, but the
pony was overburdened and Harding refused.  He explained that they
could not expect to sell it in a worn-out condition, but his partner
suspected him of sympathy for the patient beast.

They crossed the ridge and seeing a wavy line of trees in the wide
hollow, quickened their pace.  The soil was firmer, the scrub the
wheels crushed through was short, and the trail led smoothly down a
slight descent.  This was comforting, because half the sky was barred
with leaden cloud and the parched grass gleamed beneath it lividly
white, while the light that struck a ridge-top here and there had a
sinister luridness.  It was getting cold and the wind was dropping,
which was not a favourable sign.

Pushing the cart through the softer places, dragging the jaded pony by
the head, they hurried on and at length plunged through a creek with
the trees close in front.  A few minutes later they tethered the pony
to lee of the cart and set up their tent.  Then, while Blake was
rummaging out provisions and Harding searching the bluff for dry
sticks, they heard a beat of hoofs and a man rode up, leading a second
horse.  He got down and throwing a bundle off his saddle hobbled the
beasts before he turned to Blake.

"From the south?  You're for Sweetwater?" he said.

Blake told him he had guessed correctly, and asked how far they had
still to go.

"You ought to make it in a day and a half," said the other.  "I'll ride
in with you; run a store and hotel there, but feel I want to get out on
the prairie now and then, and as a horse was missing I went after him.
A looker, isn't he?"

Blake admired the animal, and suggested that the stranger had better
join them instead of cooking a separate supper.  The fellow, who told
them that his name was Gardner, had a good-humoured, sunburned face and
an honest look.  The prairie was now wrapped in inky gloom, and there
was an impressive stillness except for the occasional rustle of a leaf,
but when Harding came out of the bluff with a load of wood a puff of
icy wind suddenly stirred the grass.  The harsh rustle it made was
followed by a deafening crash, and a jagged streak of lightning fell
from the leaden clouds; then the air was filled with the roar of
driving hail.  It swept the wood, rending leaves and smashing twigs,
while the men crouched inside the straining tent and a constant blaze
of lightning flickered about the grass.  By and by the thunder died
away and the hail gave place to torrential rain, while the slender
trees rocked in the blast and small branches drove past the tent.  This
lasted some minutes, after which the rain ceased suddenly and a fierce
red light streamed along the saturated grass from the huge sinking sun.
Harding, who had brought the wood into the tent, took it out and with
the stranger's help soon made a fire.

It was getting dark, though a band of transcendental green still burned
upon the prairie's western edge when they finished supper and, sitting
round the fire, took out their pipes.  The hobbled horses were quietly
grazing near them.

"That's undoubtedly a fine animal," Blake remarked.  "Is it yours?"

"No; it belongs to Clarke's Englishman."

"Who's he?  It's a curious way to speak of a fellow."

"It fits him," said the other.  "Guess he's Clarke's, hide and bones,
and that's all there'll be when the doctor has done with him.  He's a
sucker the doctor taught farming and then sold land to."

"Then who's the doctor?" Harding inquired.

"That's not so easy to answer, but he's a man you want to be friends
with if you stay near the settlement.  Teaches farming to tenderfoot
young Englishmen and Americans; finds them land and stock to start
with, and makes a mighty good thing out of it.  Goes to Montreal now
and then, but whether it's to look up fresh suckers or on the jag is
more than I know."

"We met a fellow called Clarke at the _Windsor_ not long since.  What's
he like?"

Gardner described him and Harding said, "That's the man."

"Then I can't see what he was doing at the _Windsor_; an opium joint
would have been more in his line."

"Does the fellow live at Sweetwater?" Blake asked.

"Has a farm, and runs it well, about three miles back, but he's away
pretty often in the North and at a settlement on the edge of the bush
country.  Don't know what he does there, and they're a curious crowd;
Dubokars, Russians of sorts, I guess."

Blake had seen the Dubokars in other parts of Canada and had found them
an industrious people, leading, from religious convictions, a
remarkably primitive life.  There were, however, fanatics among them,
and he understood that these now and then led their followers into
outbreaks of emotional extravagance.

"They make good settlers, as a rule," he said.  "But, as they don't
speak English, how does the fellow get on with them?"

"Told me he was a philologist, when I asked him; then he allowed two or
three of them were mystics and he was something in that line.  He was a
doctor once and got fired out of England for something he shouldn't
have done.  Anyhow, the Dubokars are like the rest of us, good, bad,
and pretty mixed, and the crowd back of Sweetwater belong to the last.
At first some of them didn't believe it was right to work horses and
made the women drag the plough, and they'd one or two other habits that
brought the North-West Police down on them.  After that they've given
no trouble, but they get on a jag of some kind now and then."

Blake nodded.  He knew that the fanatic with untrained and unbalanced
mind is liable under the influence of excitement to indulge in crude
debauchery; but it was strange that a man of culture, such as Clarke
appeared to be, should take a part in these excesses.  He had, however,
no interest in the fellow and turned the talk on to other matters, and
when it got cold they went to sleep.

Starting early next morning, they reached Sweetwater after an
uneventful journey and found it by no means an attractive place.  South
of it rolling prairie ran back, greyish white with withered grass, to
the skyline; to the north straggling poplar bluffs and scattered
Jack-pines crowned the summits of the ridges.  A lake gleamed in a
hollow, a slow creek wound across the foreground in a deep ravine, and
here and there in the distance one could see an outlying farm.  A row
of houses followed the crest of the ravine, the side of which formed a
dumping ground for domestic refuse.  Some were built of small logs, and
some of shiplap lumber which had cracked with exposure to the sun, but
all had a neglected and poverty-stricken air.  The land was poor and
the settlement located too far from a market.  With leaden
thunderclouds hanging over it, the place looked as desolate as the
sad-coloured waste.

Following the deeply-rutted street, which had a narrow, plank sidewalk,
they reached the Imperial hotel; a somewhat pretentious,
double-storeyed building of unpainted wood, with a verandah in front of
it.  Here Gardner took the pony from them and gave them a room which
had no furniture except a chair and two rickety iron beds.  Before he
went out he indicated a printed list of the things they were not
allowed to do.  Harding studied it with a sardonic smile.

"I don't see much use in prohibiting folks from washing their clothes
in the bedrooms when they don't give you any water," he remarked.
"This place must be about the limit in the way of cheap hotels."

"It isn't cheap," said Blake; "I've seen the tariff, but on the whole I
like the fellow who keeps it."

They found their supper better than they had reason to expect, and
afterwards sat out on the verandah with the proprietor and one or two
of the settlers who boarded at the hotel.  The sun had set and now and
then a heavy shower beat upon the shingled roof, but the western sky
was clear and flushed with vivid crimson, towards which the prairie
rolled away in varying tones of blue.  Lights shone in the windows
behind the verandah, and from one which stood open a hoarse voice
drifted out, singing in a maudlin fashion snatches of an old music-hall
ditty.

"It's that fool Benson--Clarke's Englishman," Gardner explained.
"Found he'd got into my bed with his boots on after falling down in a
muskeg.  It's not the first time he's played that trick; when he gets
worse than usual he makes straight for my room."

"Why do you give him the liquor?" Harding inquired.

"I don't," said Gardner drily.  "He's a pretty regular customer, but he
never gets too much at this hotel."

"And there isn't another."

"That's so," Gardner agreed, but he offered no explanation and Blake
changed the subject.

"Unless you're fond of farming, life in these remote districts is
trying," he remarked.  "The loneliness and monotony are apt to break
down men who are not used to it."

"Turns some of them crazy and kills off a few," agreed a farmer, who
appeared to be well educated.  "After all, worse things might happen to
them."

"It's conceivable," said Blake.  "But what particular things were you
referring to?"

"I was thinking of men who go to the devil while they're alive.
There's a fellow in this neighbourhood who's doing something of the
kind."

"Rot!" exclaimed a thick voice, and a man's figure appeared against the
light at the open window.  "Devil'sh a myth; allegorolical gentleman,
everybody knowsh.  Hard word that--allegorolical.  Bad word too,
reminds you of things in the rivers down in Florida.  Must be some in
the creek here; seen them in my homestead."

"You go to bed," said Gardner sternly.

"Nosh a bit," replied the other.  "Who you talking to?"  He leaned
forward in danger of falling through the window.  "Lemme out."

"It's not all drink," Gardner explained.  "He has something like shakes
and ague now and then.  Says he got it in India."

The other disappeared and a few moments afterwards reeled out of the
door and held himself upright by one of the verandah posts.

"Now I'm here, don't let me interrupt," he said.  "Nice place if this
post would keep still."

Warned by a sign from Gardner, the others ignored him, and Harding
remarked to the farmer, "You hadn't finished what you were saying when
he disturbed you."

"I don't know that it was of much importance; speaking of degenerates,
weren't we?  We have a curious example of the neurotic here: a fellow
who makes a good many dollars by victimizing farmers who are forced to
borrow when they lose a crop, as well as young fools from England, and
by way of amusement studies modern magic and indulges in refined
debauchery.  It strikes me as a particularly unhallowed combination."

"No sensible man has any use for hoodoo tricks and the folks who
practise them," Harding said.  "They're frauds from the start."

"Don't know what you're talking about," Benson broke in.  "Not all
tricks!  Seen funny things in the East; thingsh decent men better leave
alone."

Letting go the post, he lurched forward and as the light fell upon his
face Blake started.  He had been puzzled by something familiar in the
voice, and now he knew the man, whom he had no wish to meet.  He was
too late in hitching his chair back into the shadow, for Benson had
seen him and stopped with an excited cry.

"Blake of the sappers!  Want to cut your old friendsh?  Whatsh you
doing here?"

"It's a mutual surprise, Benson," Blake replied, and the other, holding
on by a chair back, smiled at him genially.

"Often wondered where you went to after you left Peshawur, old man.
Though you got the sack for it, it wasn't your fault the ghazees broke
our line that night.  Said so to the Colonel--can see him now, sitting
there, looking very sick and cut up, and Bolsover, acting adjutant,
blinking like an owl."

"Be quiet!" Blake said in alarm, for the man had been a lieutenant of
native infantry when they had met on the hill campaign.

Benson, however, was not to be deterred and addressed the rest: "This
gentleman old friend of mine; never agreed with solemn old Colonel, but
they wouldn't listen to me.  Very black night in India; ghazees coming
yelling up the hill; nothing would stop them.  Rifles cracking,
Nepalese comp'ny busy with the bayonet, and in the thick of it the
bugle goes----"

Raising a hand to his mouth, he gave a shrill imitation of the call
"Cease fire!" and then lost his balance and fell over the chair with a
crash.

"Leave him to me," said Gardner, who seized the fallen man and with
some difficulty lifted him to his feet.  After he pushed him through
the door there were sounds of a scuffle and two or three minutes later
Gardner came back with a bruise upon his face.

"He's quiet now and the bartender will put him to bed," he said.

There was silence for the next few moments, for the group on the
verandah had been impressed by the scene; then a man came up the steps.
He was dressed in old brown overalls and carried a riding quirt, but
Harding recognized him as the man they had met at the _Windsor_ in
Montreal.

"Have you got Benson here?" he asked.

"Sure," said Gardner.  "He's left his mark on my cheek.  Why don't you
look after the fool?  Anyhow, you must have come pretty quietly; I
didn't hear you until you were half way up the steps."

"Light boots," Clarke answered, smiling; "I bought them from you.  I
don't know that I need hold myself responsible for Benson, but I found
he wasn't in when I rode past his place and it struck me that he might
get into trouble if he got on a jag."

He turned and nodded to Blake.  "So you have come up here!  I may see
you to-morrow, but if Benson's all right I'm going home now."

He went into the hotel and soon afterwards they heard him leave by
another door.




CHAPTER IX

CLARKE MAKES A SUGGESTION

At breakfast next morning Blake and Harding found the farmer, who had
spent the night at the hotel, at their table and afterwards sat for a
time on the verandah talking to him.  When they mentioned their first
objective point and asked if he could give them any directions for
reaching it he looked thoughtful.

"I only know that it's remarkably rough country; thick pine bush on
rolling ground, with some bad muskegs and small lakes," he said.  "You
would find things easier if you could hire an Indian or two and a canoe
when you strike the river.  The boys here seldom go up so far, but
Clarke could help you if he liked.  He's been north and knows the
Indians."

"We're willing to pay him for any useful help," Harding replied.

"Be careful," said the farmer.  "If you're on a prospecting trip, keep
your secret close.  There's another thing I might mention."  He turned
to Blake.  "If you're a friend of Benson's, take him along with you."

"I suppose I am, in a way, though it's a long time since I met him.
But why do you recommend our taking him?"

"I hate to see a man go to pieces as Benson's doing, and Clarke's
ruining the fellow.  He must have got two or three thousand dollars out
of him one way or another and isn't satisfied with that.  Lent him
money on mortgage to start a foolish stock-raising speculation and
keeps him well supplied with drink.  The fellow's weak, but he has his
good points."

"But what's Clarke's object?"

"It isn't very clear, but a man who's seldom sober is easily robbed and
Benson's place is worth something; Clarke sees it's properly farmed.
However, you must use your judgment about anything he tells you; I've
given you warning."

He went away and Blake sat silent for a time.  Though they had not been
intimate friends, he had known Benson when the latter was a wild young
subaltern, and it did not seem fitting to leave him in the clutches of
a man who was ruining him in health and fortune.  He would sooner not
have met the man at all, but since they had met, there was, so far as
he could see, only one thing to be done.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to take Benson with us," he said to
Harding.

The American looked doubtful.  "We could do with another white man, but
I guess your friend isn't the kind we want.  He may give us trouble,
and you can't count on much help from a whisky-tank.  However, if you
wish it, you can bring him."

Soon afterwards Benson came out from the dining-room.  He was two or
three years younger than Blake and had a muscular figure, but he looked
shaky and his face was weak and marked by dissipation.  Smiling in a
deprecatory way, he lighted a cigar.

"I'm afraid I made a fool of myself last night," he said.  "If I made
any unfortunate allusions you must overlook them.  You must have seen
that I wasn't altogether responsible."

"I did," Blake answered drily.  "If we are to remain friends, you had
better understand that I can't tolerate any further mention of the
matter you talked about."

"Sorry," said Benson, who gave him a keen glance.  "Though I don't
think you have much cause to be touchy about it, I'll try to remember."

"Then I'd like you to know my partner, Mr. Harding, who has agreed to a
suggestion I'm going to make.  We want you to come with us on a trip to
the northern bush."

"Thanks," said Benson, who shook hands with Harding.  "I wonder what
use you think I would be?"

"To tell the truth, I haven't considered whether you would be of any
use or not; but you had better come.  The trip will brace you up, and
you look as if you needed it."

Benson's face grew red.  "Your intentions may be good, but you virtuous
and respectable people sometimes show a meddlesome thoughtfulness which
degenerates like myself resent.  Besides, I suspect your offer has come
too late."

"I don't think you have much reason for taunting me with being
respectable," Blake rejoined with a grim smile.  "Anyway, I want you to
come with us."

Tilting his chair back, Benson looked heavily about.  "When I was new
to the country I often wished to go north.  There are caribou and moose
up yonder; great sights when the rivers break up in spring, and a
sledge trip across the snow must be a thing to remember.  The wilds
draw you, but I'm afraid my nerve's not good enough.  A man must be fit
in every way to cross the timber belt."

"Then why aren't you fit?  Why have you let that fellow Clarke suck the
life and energy out of you, as well as rob you of your money?"

"You hit hard, but I expect I deserve it, and I'll try to explain."
Benson indicated the desolate settlement with a gesture of weariness.

Ugly frame houses straggled, weather-scarred and dilapidated, along one
side of the unpaved street, while unsightly refuse dumps disfigured the
slopes of the ravine in front.  There was no sign of activity, but two
or three untidy loungers leaned against a rude shack with "Pool Room,"
painted on its dirty window.  All round, the rolling prairie stretched
back to the horizon, washed in dingy drab and grey.  The prospect was
dreary and depressing.

"This place," Benson resumed, "hasn't much to offer one in the way of
relaxation, and, for a man used to something different, life at a
lonely homestead soon loses its charm.  Unless he's a keen farmer, he's
apt to go to bits."

"Then why don't you quit?" Harding asked.

"Where could I go?  A man with no profession except the one he hasn't
the means to follow is not much use at home, and all my money is sunk
in my place here.  As things stand, I can't sell it."  He turned to
Blake.  "I left the army because a financial disaster I wasn't
responsible for stopped my allowance and I was in debt.  Eventually
about two thousand pounds were saved out of the wreck, and I came here
with that feeling badly hipped, which was one reason why I took to
whisky, and Clarke, who engaged to teach me farming, saw I got plenty
of it.  Now he has his hands on all that's mine, but he keeps me fairly
supplied with cash, and it saves trouble to leave things to him."

When Benson stopped Blake made a sign of comprehension, for he knew
that somewhat exceptional qualities are required of the man who
undertakes the breaking of virgin prairie in the remoter districts.  He
must have unflinching courage and stubbornness and be able to dispense
with all the comforts and amenities of civilized life.  No interests
are offered him beyond those connected with his task; for half the year
he must toil unremittingly from dawn to dark, and depend upon his own
resources through the long, bitter winter.  For society he may have a
hired hand and the loungers in the saloon of the nearest settlement,
which is often a day's ride away, and they are not, as a rule, men of
culture or pleasing manners.  For the strong in mind and body it is
nevertheless a healthful life, but Benson was not of sufficiently tough
fibre.

"Now see here," said Harding.  "I'm out for dollars, and this is a
business trip, but Blake wants to take you and I'm agreeable.  If you
can stand for two or three months hard work in the open and very plain
living, you'll feel yourself a match for Clarke when you get back.
Though there's no reason why you should tell a stranger like myself how
you stand if you'd sooner not, I know something of business and might
see a way out of your difficulties."

Benson hesitated.  He would have resented an attempt to use his
troubles as a text for improving remarks, since he already knew his
failings.  What he desired was a means of escaping their consequences,
and the American, whose tone was reassuringly matter of fact, seemed to
offer it.  He began an explanation and, with the help of a few leading
questions, made his financial position fairly clear.

"Well," said Harding, "Clarke has certainly got a tight hold on you,
but I guess it's possible to shake him off.  As things stand, however,
it seems to me he has most to gain from your death."

"He couldn't count on that; to do the fellow justice, he'd hardly go so
far, but there's some truth in what you say."  Benson looked disturbed
and irresolute, but after a few moments he abruptly threw his cigar
away and leaned forward with a decided air.  "If you'll have me, I'll
go with you."

"You're wise," Harding said quietly.

Shortly afterwards Benson left them and Harding said to Blake, "Now you
had better go along and see if you can learn anything from Clarke about
our road.  He's a rogue, but that's no reason we shouldn't make him
useful.  If he can help us, pay him and be careful what you say.
Remember that he was watching you at the _Windsor_, and I've a
suspicion that he was standing in the shadow near the stairs when
Benson talked last night."

Borrowing a saddle, Blake rode over to Clarke's homestead, which had a
well-kept, prosperous look, and found its owner in a small room
furnished as an office.  Files of papers and a large map of the Western
Provinces hung upon one wall; the floor was uncovered and a rusty stove
stood in the middle of it, but Clarke was seated at a handsome American
desk.  He wore old overalls and the soil upon his boots suggested that
he had been engaged in fall ploughing.  As Benson came in he looked up
and the light fell upon his face.  It was deeply lined and of a curious
dead colour, but while it bore a sensual stamp and something in it
hinted at cruelty, it was, Blake felt, the face of a clever and
determined man.

"Ah!" he said, "you have ridden over for a talk.  Glad to see you.
Have a cigar."

Blake, who took one, explained his errand and Clarke seemed to
consider.  Then he took out a small hand-drawn map and passed it to his
visitor.

"I won't ask why you are going north, as I daresay it's a secret," he
remarked.  "However, though it's too valuable for me to lend it you,
this will show you your way through the timber belt."  He cleared the
other end of the desk.  "Sit here and make a note of the features of
the country."

It took Blake some time, but he had been taught such work and did it
carefully.  When he had finished, Clarke resumed: "I'll give you a few
directions, and you had better take them down, but you'll want a canoe
and one or two Indians.  I daresay I could enable you to get them, but
I think the service is worth fifty dollars."

"I'd be glad to pay it when we come back," Blake answered cautiously.
"It's possible that we mightn't find the Indians, and we might leave
the water and strike overland."

"As you like," Clarke said with a smile.  "I'll give you the directions
before you go, but there's another matter I want to talk about."  He
fixed his eyes on Blake.  "You are a nephew of Colonel Challoner's."

"I am, but I can't see what connexion this has----"

Clarke stopped him.  "It's not an impertinence.  Hear me out.  You were
a lieutenant of engineers and served in India, where you left the army."

"That is correct, but it's not a subject I'm disposed to talk about."

"So I imagined," Clarke said drily.  "Still I would like to say that
there is some reason for believing you to be a badly treated man.  You
have my sympathy."

"Thank you," said Blake.  "I must remind you that I have given you no
grounds for offering it."

"A painful subject!  But are you content to quietly suffer injustice?"

"I don't admit an injustice.  Besides, I don't see what you can know
about the matter."

"A proper line to take with an outsider like myself; but I know you
were turned out of the army for a fault you did not commit."

Blake's face set sternly.  "It's hard to understand how you arrived at
that flattering conclusion."

"I won't explain, but I'm convinced of its correctness," Clarke
rejoined, watching him.  "One would imagine that the most important
matter is that you were driven out of a calling you liked and were sent
here, ruined in repute and fortune.  Are you satisfied with your lot?
Haven't you the courage to insist upon being reinstated?"

"My reinstation would be difficult," Blake said curtly.

He would have left the house only that he was curious to learn where
the other's suggestions led and how much he knew.  There was a moment's
silence, and then Clarke went on--

"A young man of ability, with means and influence behind him, has a
choice of careers in England, and there's another point to be
considered: you might wish to marry.  That, of course, is out of the
question now."

"It will, no doubt, remain so," Blake replied with the colour creeping
into his set face.

"Then you have given up all idea of clearing yourself?  The thing may
be easier than you imagine if properly handled."  Clarke paused and
added significantly: "In fact I could show you a way in which the
matter could be straightened out without causing serious trouble to
anybody concerned; that is, if you are disposed to take me into your
confidence."

Blake got up, filled with anger and uneasiness.  He had no great faith
in Harding's scheme; his life as a needy adventurer had its trials, and
it had been cunningly hinted that he could change it when he liked, but
he had no intention of doing so.  This was an old resolve, but it was
disconcerting to feel that an unscrupulous fellow was anxious to meddle
with his affairs, for Clarke had obviously implied the possibility of
putting some pressure upon Colonel Challoner.  Blake shrank from the
suggestion.  It was not to be thought of.

"I have nothing more to say on the subject," he answered sternly.  "It
must be dropped."

Somewhat to his surprise, Clarke acquiesced good-humouredly, after a
keen glance at him.

"As you wish," he said.  "However, that needn't prevent my giving you
the directions I promised, particularly as it may help me to earn fifty
dollars.  I believe Benson spent some time with you this morning; are
you taking him?"

Blake started.  He wondered how the man could have guessed, but he
admitted that Benson was going.

"You may find him a drag, but that's your affair," said Clarke in a
tone of indifference.  "Now sit down and make a careful note of what I
tell you."

Believing that the information might be of service, Blake did as he was
told, and then took his leave.  When he had gone, Clarke sat still for
a time with a curious smile.  Blake had firmly declined to be
influenced by his hints, but Clarke had half expected this, and what he
had learned about the young man's character cleared the ground.




CHAPTER X

BENSON GIVES TROUBLE

It was nearly dark when Blake and Harding led two packhorses through a
thin spruce wood, with Benson lagging a short distance behind.  They
had spent some time crossing a wide stretch of rolling country, dotted
with clumps of poplar and birch, which was still sparsely inhabited,
and now they had reached the edge of the timber belt that cuts off the
prairie from the desolate barrens.  The spruces were gnarled and
twisted by the wind, a number of them were dead, and many of the rest
leaned unsymmetrically athwart each other.  The straggling wood had no
beauty and in the fading light wore a dreary, forbidding look.
Fortunately, however, it was thin enough for the travellers to pick
their way among the fallen branches and patches of muskeg, for the
ground was marsh and their feet sank among the withered needles.

By and by Blake checked his pony and waited until Benson came up.  The
man moved with a slack heaviness and his face was worn and tense.  He
was tired with the journey, for excess had weakened him, and now the
lust for drink which he had stubbornly fought against had grown
overwhelming.

"I can go no faster.  Push on and I'll follow your tracks," he said in
a surly tone.  "It takes time to get into condition, and I haven't
walked much for several years."

"Neither have I," Harding answered cheerfully "I'm more used to riding
in elevators and the street cars, but this sort of thing soon makes you
fit."

"You're not troubled with my complaint," Benson rejoined, and when
Blake started the pony deliberately dropped behind.

"He's in a black mood; we'll leave him to himself," Harding remarked.
"So far he's braced up better than I expected, but when a man's been
tanking steadily, it's pretty drastic to put him through the total
deprivation cure."

"I wonder," Blake said thoughtfully, "whether it is a cure; we have
both seen men who made some effort to save themselves go down.  Though
I'm a long way from being a philanthropist, I hate this waste of good
material.  Perhaps it's partly an economic objection, because I used to
get savage in India when any of the Tommies' lives were thrown away by
careless handling."

"It was your soldiers' business to be made use of, wasn't it?"

"Yes," said Blake, frowning; "but there's a difference between that and
the other thing.  It's the needless waste of life and talent that
annoys me.  On the frontier, we spent men freely, which is the best
word for it, because we tried to get something in return; a rebel hill
fort seized, a raid turned back.  If Benson had killed himself in
breaking a horse or by an accident with a harvesting machine, one
couldn't complain; but to see him do so with whisky is another matter."

Harding nodded.  Blake was not given to serious conversation; indeed,
he was rather casual, as a rule, but Harding, who was shrewd, saw
beneath the surface a love of order, and what he thought of as
constructive ability.

"I guess you're right, but your speaking of India, reminds me of
something I want to mention.  I've been thinking over what Clarke said
to you.  His game's obvious, and it might have been a profitable one.
He wanted you to help him in squeezing Colonel Challoner."

"He knows now that he applied to the wrong man."

"That's so; it's my point.  Suppose the fellow goes to work without
you?  It looks as if he'd learned enough to make him dangerous."

"He can do nothing.  Let him trump up any plausible theory he likes; it
won't stand for a moment after I deny it."

"True," said Harding gravely.  "But if you were out of the way, he'd
have a free hand.  Since you wouldn't join him you're a serious
obstacle."

Blake laughed.  "I'm glad I am, and as I come of a healthy stock
there's reason to believe I'll continue one."

Harding said nothing more, and they went on in silence through the
gathering darkness  The spruces were losing shape and getting blacker,
though through openings here and there they could see a faint line of
smoky red on the horizon.  A cold wind wailed among the branches, and
the thud of the tired horses' feet rang dully among the shadowy trunks.
At length, reaching a strip of higher ground, the men pitched camp and
turned out the hobbled horses to graze among the swamp grass that lined
a muskeg.  After supper they sat beside their fire, and by and by
Benson took his pipe from his mouth.

"I've had enough of this, and I'm only a drag on you," he said.  "Give
me grub enough to see me through, and I'll start back for the
settlement first thing in the morning."

"Don't be a fool," Blake said sharply.  "You'll get harder and feel the
march less every day.  Are you willing to let Clarke get hold of you
again?"

"I don't want to go.  I'm driven; I can't help myself."

Blake felt sorry for him.  He imagined that Benson had made a hard
fight, but he was being beaten by his craving.  Still, it seemed unwise
to show any sympathy.

"You want to wallow like a hog for two or three days that you'll regret
all your life," he said.  "You have your chance of breaking free now.
Be a man and take it.  Hold out a little longer and you'll find it
easier."

Benson regarded him with a mocking smile.  "I'm inclined to think the
jag you so feelingly allude to will last a week; that is, if I can
raise dollars enough from Clarke to keep it up.  You mayn't understand
that I'm willing to barter all my future for it."

"Yes," said Harding grimly; "we understand all right.  Yours is not a
singular case; the trouble is that it's too common.  But we'll quit
talking about it.  You can't go."

He was in no mood to handle the subject delicately; they were alone in
the wilds and the situation made for candour.  There was only one way
in which they could help the man and he meant to take it.  Benson
turned to him angrily.

"Your permission's not required; I'm a free man."

"Are you?" Harding asked.  "It strikes me as a very curious boast.
Improving the occasion's a riling thing, but there was never a slave in
Dixie tighter bound than you."

"That's an impertinence," Benson rejoined, flushing, as unsatisfied
longing drove him to fury.  "What business is it of yours to preach to
me?  Confound you! who are you?  I tell you I won't have it.  Give me
food enough to last until I reach Sweetwater and let me go."

As he spoke a haughty ring crept into his voice and Blake was moved to
compassion because he recognized it and found it ludicrous.  Benson,
who would not have used that tone in his normal state, belonged by
right of birth to a ruling caste, and no doubt felt that he had been
treated with indignity by a man of lower station.  Harding, however,
answered quietly--

"I am a paint factory drummer who has never had the opportunities you
have enjoyed, but so long as we're up here in the wilds the only thing
that counts is that we're men with the same weaknesses and feelings.
Because that's so, and you're hard up against it, I and my partner mean
to see you through."

"You can't unless I'm willing.  Man, don't you realize that talking's
of no use?  The thing I'm driven by won't yield to words.  What's more
to the purpose, I didn't engage to go all the way with you.  Now I've
had enough, I'm going back to the settlement."

"Very well.  You were right in claiming that there was no engagement of
any kind.  So far, we have found you in grub, but we're not bound to do
so, and if you leave us, you must shift for yourself."  Harding
addressed Blake, who sat nearest the provisions.  "You'll see that your
friend doesn't touch those stores."

There was silence for a moment or two, and Benson, whose face was
marked with baffled desire and scarcely controlled fury, glared at the
others.  Blake's expression was pitiful, but his lips were resolutely
set; Harding's eyes were very keen and determined.  Then Benson made a
sign of resignation.

"It looks as if I were beaten.  I may as well go to sleep."

He wrapped his blanket round him and lay down near the fire, and soon
afterwards the others crept into the tent.  Benson would be warm enough
where he lay and they felt it a relief to get away from him.

Day was breaking when Blake rose and threw fresh wood on the fire, and
as a bright flame leaped up, driving back the shadows, he saw that
Benson was missing.  This, however, did not disturb him, because the
man had been restless and they had now and then heard him moving about
at night.  When the fire had burned up and he filled the kettle,
without his seeing anything of his friend, he began to grow anxious and
called loudly.  There was no answer and he could hear no movement in
the bush.  The dark spruces had grown sharper in form; he could see
some distance between the trunks, but everything was still.  Then
Harding came out of the tent.

"You had better look if the horses are there," he suggested.

Blake failed to find them near the muskeg, but as the light got clearer
he saw tracks leading through the bush.  Following these for a
distance, he came upon the Indian pony, still hobbled, but the other, a
powerful range horse, had gone.  Mounting the pony, he rode back to
camp, where he found Harding looking grave.

"The fellow's gone and taken some provisions with him," he said.  "He
left this for us."

It was a strip of paper, apparently torn from a pocket-book, with a few
lines written on it.  Benson said he regretted having to leave them in
such an unceremonious fashion, but they had given him no choice, and
added that he would leave the horse, hobbled, at a spot about two days'
ride away.

"He seems to think he's showing us some consideration in not riding the
beast down to the settlement," Blake remarked with a dubious smile,
feeling strongly annoyed with himself for not taking more precautions.
With the cunning which the lust for drink breeds in its victims Benson
had outwitted him by feigning acquiescence.  "Anyhow," he added, "I'll
have to go after him.  We must have the horse, for one thing, but I
suppose we'll lose four days.  This is rough on you."

"Yes," agreed Harding, "you must get after him, but don't mind about
me.  The man's a friend of yours and I like him; he wasn't quite
responsible last night.  I wouldn't feel happy if we let him fall back
into the clutches of that cunning brute.  Now we'll get breakfast;
you'll need it."

They made a hasty meal and during it Blake said, "If you don't mind
waiting, I'll follow him half way to Sweetwater if necessary.  You see
I haven't much expectation of overtaking him before he leaves the
horse.  It's the faster beast and we don't know when he started."

"That's so," said Harding.  "Still, you're tough, and I guess the first
hard day's ride will be enough for your partner."

Five minutes later Blake was picking his way as fast as possible
through the wood.  It was a cool morning, and when he had gone a few
miles the ground was fairly clear.  By noon he was in more open
country, where there were long stretches of grass, and after a short
rest he pushed on fast.  Bright sunshine flooded the waste that now
stretched back to the south, sprinkled with clumps of bush that showed
a shadowy blue in the distance.  In those he passed the birch and
poplar leaves glowed in flecks of vivid lemon among the white stems,
but Blake rode hard, his eyes turned steadily on the misty skyline.  It
was only broken by clusters of small trees; nothing moved on the
wilderness he pushed across.

He felt tired when evening came, but he must find water before he
camped, and he pressed on.  Benson was a weak fool, who would, no
doubt, give them further trouble, but they had taken him in hand, and
Blake had made up his mind to save him from the rogue who preyed upon
his failings.  It was getting late when he saw a faint trail of smoke
curl up against the sky from a distant bluff, and on approaching it he
checked the jaded pony.  Later he dismounted and picketing the animal
moved cautiously round the edge of the wood.  Passing a projecting
tongue of smaller brush, he saw, as he had expected, Benson sitting
beside a fire, and stopped a moment to watch him.  The man's face was
weary, his pose was slack, and it was obvious that the life he had led
had unfitted him for a long, hard ride.  He looked forlorn and
dejected, but he started as Blake moved forward and his eyes had an
angry gleam.

"So you have overtaken me; I thought myself safe from you," he said.

"You were wrong," Blake replied.  "If it had been needful, I'd have
gone after you to Clarke's.  But I'm hungry and I'll cook my supper at
your fire."  He glanced at the provisions scattered about.  "You
haven't had much of a meal."

"It's a long drink I want," said Benson, looking steadily at him.

Blake, who let this pass, prepared his supper and offered the other a
portion.

"Try some of that," he said, indicating the light flapjacks fizzling
among the pork in the frying-pan.  "It strikes me as a good deal more
tempting than the stuff you have been eating."

Benson thrust the food aside, and Blake finished it before he took out
his pipe.  "Now," he said, "you can go to sleep when you wish.  I
expect you're tired, and it's a long ride back to camp."

"You seem to count upon my going back with you," Benson remarked
mockingly.

"I do; don't you mean to come?"

"Do you suppose it's likely after I've ridden all this way?"

Blake laid down his pipe and looked hard at the man.  "You force me to
take a line I'm not cut out for.  Think a moment!  You have land and
stock worth a good deal of money which my partner believes can be saved
from the rogue who's stealing it from you.  You are a young man, and if
you pull yourself together and pay off his claims, you can sell out and
look for another opening wherever you like, but you know what will
happen if you go on as you are doing a year or two longer.  Have you no
friends and relatives in England you owe something to?  Is your life
worth nothing, that you're willing to throw it away?"

"It's all true," Benson admitted moodily.  "Do you think I can't see
where I'm drifting?  The trouble is that I've gone too far to stop."

"Try," said Blake.  "It's very well worth while."

Benson was silent for a few moments, and then looked up with a curious
expression.  "You're wasting time, Dick.  I've sunk too far.  Go back
in the morning and leave me to my fate."

"When I go back you are coming with me."

Benson's nerves were on edge and his self-control broke down.
"Confound you!" he cried; "let me alone!  You have reached the limit;
once for all, I'll stand no more meddling."

"Very well," Blake answered quietly, "You have left me only one
recourse, and you can't blame me for taking it."

"What's that?"

"Superior strength.  You're a heavier man than I am and ought to be a
match for me, but you have lost your nerve and grown soft and flabby
with drink.  It's your own doing, and now you have to take the
consequences.  If you compel me, I'll drag you back to camp with the
pack lariat."

"Do you mean that?"  Benson's face grew flushed and his eyes glittered.

"Try me and see."

Savage as he was, Benson realized that his companion was capable of
making his promise good.  The man looked hard and very muscular, and
his expression was determined.

"This is insufferable!" he cried.

Blake coolly filled his pipe.  "There's no other remedy.  Before I go
to sleep I'll picket the horses close beside me and if you steal away
on foot during the night, I'll ride you down a few hours after
daybreak.  I think you understand me, and there's nothing more to be
said."

He tried to talk about other matters and found it hard, for Benson,
tormented by his craving, made no response.  Darkness crept in about
them and the prairie grew shadowy.  The leaves in the bluff rustled in
a faint, cold wind, and the smoke of the fire drifted round the men.
For a while Benson sat moodily watching his companion, and then,
wrapping his blanket round him, lay down and turned away his head.  It
was now very dark outside the flickering light of the fire, and by and
by Blake, who felt the strain of the situation, strolled towards the
horses and chose a resting-place beside their pickets.

Waking in the cold of daybreak, he saw Benson asleep, and made
breakfast before he called him.  They ate in silence and then Blake led
up the pony.

"I think we'll make a start," he said as cheerfully as he could.

For a moment or two Benson hesitated, standing with hands clenched and
baffled desire in his face, but Blake looked coolly resolute, and he
mounted.




CHAPTER XI

HARDING GROWS SUSPICIOUS

Benson gave Blake no further trouble, and when they rode up to the
camp, apparently on good terms with one another, Harding made no
reference to what had occurred.  He greeted them pleasantly and soon
afterwards they sat down to a meal he had been cooking.  When they had
finished and lighted their pipes Benson said, "A remark was made the
other night which struck me as quite warranted.  It was pointed out
that I had contributed nothing to the cost of this trip."

"It was very uncivil of Harding to mention it," Blake answered with a
grin.  "Still, you see, circumstances rather forced him."

"They did.  You might have put it more harshly with truth.  But I want
to suggest that you let me take a share in your venture."

"Sorry," said Harding, "I can't agree to that."

Benson sat smoking in silence for the next minute or two.  Then he
said, "I think I understand and can't blame you.  You haven't much
cause for trusting me."

"I didn't mean----" Harding began, but Benson stopped him.

"I know.  It's my weakness you're afraid of.  However, you must let me
pay my share of the provisions and any transport we may be able to get.
That's all I insist on now; if you feel more confidence in me later, I
may reopen the other question."  He paused and added: "You are two very
good fellows.  I think I can promise not to play the fool again."

"Perhaps we'd better talk about something else," Blake suggested.

They broke camp early next morning, and Benson struggled manfully with
his craving during the next week or two which they spent in pushing
farther into the forest.  It was a desolate waste of small, stunted
trees, many of which were dead and stripped of half their branches,
while wide belts had been scarred by fire.  Harding found the unvarying
sombre green of the needles strangely monotonous, but the ground was
comparatively clear, and the party made progress until at length, when
the country grew more broken, they fell in with three returning
prospectors.

"If you'll trade your horses, we might make a deal," said one when they
camped together.  "You can't take them much farther--the country's too
rough--and we could sell out to one of the farmers near the
settlements."

Blake was glad to come to terms, and afterwards another of the men
said, "We've been out two months on a general prospecting trip.  It's
the toughest country to get through I ever struck."

His worn and ragged appearance bore this out, and Harding asked: "Are
there minerals up yonder?  We're not in that line; it's a forest
product we're looking for."

"We found indications of gold, copper, and one or two other metals,
besides petroleum, but didn't see anything that looked worth taking up.
Considering the cost of transport, you want to strike it pretty rich
before what you find will pay as a business proposition."

"So I should imagine.  Petroleum's a cheap product to handle when
you're a long way from a market, isn't it?"

"Give us plenty of it and we'll make a market.  It's an idea of mine
that there's no part of this country that hasn't something worth
working in it if you can get cheap fuel.  Where the land's too poor for
farming you often find minerals, and ore that won't pay for transport
can be reduced on the spot, so long as you have natural resources that
can be turned into power.  With an oil well in good flow we'd soon
start some profitable industry and put up a city that would bring a
railroad in.  Show our business men a good opening and you'll get the
dollars, while there are folks across the frontier who have a mighty
keen scent for oil."

"Have you done much prospecting?" Harding asked.

The other smiled.  "Whenever I can get dollars enough for an outfit I
go off on the trail.  There's a fascination in the thing that gets hold
of you--you can't tell what you may strike and the prizes are big.
However, I allow that after seven or eight years of it I'm poorer than
when I started at the game."

Blake made a sign of comprehension.  He knew the sanguine nature of the
Westerner and his belief in the richness of his country, and he had
felt the call of the wilderness.  There was, in truth, a fascination in
the silent waste that drew the adventurous into its rugged fastnesses,
and that a number of them did not come back seldom deterred the others.

"We want to get as far north as the timber limit, if we can," he said.
"I understand there are no Hudson's Bay factories near our line, but we
were told we might find some Stony Indians."

"There's one bunch of them," the prospector replied.  "They ramble
about after fish and furs, but they've a kind of base-camp where a few
generally stop.  They're a mean crowd and often short of food, but if
they've been lucky you might get supplies.  Now and then they put up a
lot of dried fish and kill some caribou."

He told Blake roughly where the Indian encampment lay, and after
talking for a while they went to sleep.  Next morning the prospectors,
who took the horses, started for the south, while Blake's party pushed
on north with loads that severely tried their strength.  After a few
days' laborious march they reached a stream and found a few Indians who
were willing to take them some distance down it.  It was a relief to
get rid of the heavy packs and rest while the canoe glided smoothly
through the straggling forest, and the labour of hauling her across the
numerous portages was light compared with the toil of the march.
Blake, however, had misgivings; they were making swift progress
northwards, but it would be different when they came back.  Rivers and
lakes would be frozen then, which might make travelling easier, if they
could pick up the hand sledges they had cached, but there was a limit
to the provisions they could transport, and unless fresh supplies could
be obtained they would have a long distance to traverse on scanty
rations in the rigours of the Arctic winter.

After a day or two the Indians, who were going no farther, landed them
and they entered a belt of very broken country across which they must
push to reach a larger stream.  The ground was rocky, pierced by
ravines, and covered with clumps of small trees.  There were stony
tracts they painfully picked their way across, steep ridges to be
clambered over, and belts of quaggy muskeg they must skirt, and the
day's march grew rapidly shorter.  Benson, however, gave them no
trouble; the man was getting hard and was generally cheerful, while
when he had an occasional fit of moroseness as he fought with the
longing that tormented him they left him alone.  Still at times they
were daunted by the rugged sternness of the region they were steadily
pushing through, and the thought of the long return journey troubled
them.

One night when it was raining they sat beside their fire in a desolate
gorge.  A cold wind swept between the thin spruce trunks that loomed
vaguely out of the surrounding gloom as the red glare leaped up, and
wisps of acrid smoke drifted about the camp.  There was a lake up the
hollow, and now and then the wild and mournful cry of a loon rang out.
The men were tired and somewhat dejected as they sat about the blaze
with their damp blankets round them, but by and by Blake, who had been
feeling drowsy, looked up.

"What was that?" he asked.

The others could hear nothing but the sound of running water and the
wail of the wind.  Since leaving the Indians they had seen no sign of
life and believed they were crossing uninhabited wilds.  Blake could
not tell what had suddenly roused his attention, but in former days he
had developed his perceptive faculties by close night watching on the
Indian frontier, where any relaxing of his vigilance might have cost
his life.  Something, he thought, was moving in the bush and he felt
uneasy.  Then he rose as a stick cracked, and Harding called out as a
shadowy figure appeared on the edge of the light.  Blake laughed, but
his uneasiness did not desert him when he recognized Clarke.  The
fellow was not to be trusted and had come upon them in a startling
manner.  Moving coolly forward, he sat down by the fire.

"I suppose you were surprised to see me," he remarked.

"That's so," Harding answered and added nothing further, while Benson,
whose face wore a curious strained expression, did not speak.

"Well," said Clarke, who filled his pipe, "I daresay I made a rather
dramatic entrance, falling upon you, so to speak, out of the dark."

"I've a suspicion that you enjoy that kind of thing," Harding rejoined.
"You're a man with the dramatic feeling; guess you find it useful now
and then."

Clarke's eyes twinkled, but it was not with wholesome humour.  They
were keen, but he looked old and forbidding as he sat with the smoke
blowing about him and the ruddy firelight on his face.

"There's some truth in your remark and I take it as a compliment, but
my arrival's easily explained.  I saw your fire in the distance and
curiosity brought me along."

"What are you doing up here?"

"Going on a visit to my friends the Stonies.  Though it's a long way, I
look them up now and then."

"From what I've heard of them they don't seem a very attractive lot,"
Blake interposed.  "But we haven't offered you any supper.  Benson, you
might put on the frying-pan."

"No thanks," said Clarke.  "I'm camped with two half-breeds a little
way back.  The Stonies, as you remark, are not a polished set, but
we're on pretty good terms and it's their primitiveness that makes them
interesting.  You can learn things civilized folk don't know much about
from these people."

"In my opinion it's knowledge that's not worth much to a white man,"
Harding remarked contemptuously.  "Guess you mean the secrets of their
medicine-men?  What isn't gross superstition is trickery."

"There you are wrong.  They have some tricks, rather clever ones,
though that's not unusual with the professors of a more advanced
occultism; but living, as they do, in direct contact with Nature in her
most savage mood, they have found clues to things that we regard as
mysteries.  Anyhow, they have discovered a few effective remedies that
aren't generally known yet to medical science."

He spoke with some warmth and had the look of a genuine enthusiast, but
Harding laughed.

"Medical science hasn't much to say in favour of hoodoo practices, so
far as I know.  But I understand you are a doctor."

"I was pretty well known in London."

"Then," said Harding bluntly, "what brought you to Sweetwater?"

"If you haven't heard, I may as well tell you, because the thing isn't
a secret at the settlement."  Clarke turned and his eyes rested on
Blake.  "I'm by no means the only man who has come to Canada under a
cloud.  There was a famous police-court affair I figured in, and though
nothing was proved against me my practice afterwards fell to bits.  As
a matter of fact, I was absolutely innocent of the offence I was
charged with.  I had acted without much caution out of pity and laid
myself open to an attack that was meant to cover the escape of the real
criminal."

Blake, who thought he spoke the truth, felt some sympathy, but Clarke
went on: "In a few weeks I was without patients or friends; driven out
from the profession I loved and in which I was beginning to make my
mark.  It was a blow I never altogether recovered from, and the
generous impulse which got me into trouble was the last I yielded to."

His face changed, growing hard and malevolent, and Blake now felt
strangely repelled.  It looked as if the man had been soured by his
misfortunes and turned into an outlaw who found a vindictive pleasure
in making such reprisals as he found possible upon society at large.
This conclusion was borne out by what Blake had learned at the
settlement.

Nobody made any comment, and there was silence for a few minutes while
the smoke whirled about the group and the drips from the dark boughs
above fell upon the brands.  Then Clarke asked Benson a question or two
and afterwards talked casually with the others until he rose to go.

"I shall start at daybreak and your way lies to the east of mine," he
said.  "You'll find travelling easier when the snow comes; I wish you
good luck."

Though the loneliness of the wilds had now and then weighed upon them,
they felt relieved when he left, and soon afterwards Benson went to
sleep, but Blake and Harding continued talking for a time.

"That's a man I have no use for," the American remarked.  "I suppose it
struck you that he made no attempt to get your friend back?"

"I noticed it.  He may have thought it wouldn't succeed and didn't wish
to show his hand.  Benson already looks a different man; I saw the
fellow studying him."

"He could have drawn him away by the sight of a whisky flask or a hint
of a jag in camp.  My opinion is that he didn't want him."

"That's curious," said Blake.  "He seems to have stuck to Benson pretty
closely, no doubt with the object of fleecing him, and you think he's
not altogether ruined yet."

"If what he told me is correct, there are still some pickings left on
him."

"I don't suppose the explanation is that Clarke has some conscience and
feels he has robbed him enough."

Harding laughed.  "He has as much pity as a hungry wolf; in fact, to my
mind, he's the more dangerous brute, because I've a feeling that he
delights in doing harm.  There's something cruel about the man; getting
fired out of his profession must have warped his nature.  Then there
was another point that struck me; why's he going so far to stay with
those Indians?"

"It's puzzling," Blake said thoughtfully.  "He hinted that he was
interested in their superstitions, and I think there was some truth in
it.  Meddling with these things seems to have a fascination for
neurotic people, and as the fellow's a sensualist he may find some form
of indulgence that wouldn't be tolerated near the settlements.  All
this, however, doesn't quite seem to account for the thing."

"I've another idea," said Harding.  "Clarke's known as a crank and
takes advantage of it to cover his doings.  At first, I thought of the
whisky trade, but taking up prohibited liquor would hardly be worth his
while, though I daresay he has some with him to be used for gaining his
Indian friends' good will.  He's on the trail of something and it's
probably minerals.  What the prospector told us suggested it to me."

"You may be right.  Anyway, it doesn't seem to concern us."

"Well," said Harding gravely, "I'm troubled about his leaving Benson
alone, when one could have understood his trying to take him away.  The
fellow had some good reason--I wish I knew."

He rose to throw more wood upon the fire and they changed the subject.




CHAPTER XII

THE MUSKEG

It was a fortnight later when the party entered a hollow between two
low ranges.  The hills receded as they progressed, the basin widened
and grew more difficult to traverse, for the ground was boggy and
thickly covered with small, rotting pines.  Every here and there some
had fallen and lay in horrible tangles among pools of mire.  A sluggish
creek wound through the hollow and the men had often to cross it, while
as they plodded through the morass they found their loads intolerably
heavy.  Still Clarke's directions had plainly indicated this valley as
their road, and they stubbornly pushed on, camping where they could
find a dry spot.

They were generally wet to the waist and their temper began to give way
under the strain, while Blake was annoyed to find his sleep disturbed
when he lay down in damp clothes beside the fire at nights.  Sometimes
he was too hot and sometimes he lay awake shivering, for hours.  He
had, however, suffered from malarial fever in India without having it
badly, and supposed that it had again attacked him now that he was
feeling the hardships of the march.  Saying nothing to his companions,
he patiently trudged on, though his head throbbed and he was conscious
of a depressing weakness; and the ground grew softer as they proceeded.
The creek no longer kept within its banks but spread in shallow pools,
the rotting trees were giving place to tall grass and reeds.  The
valley had turned into a very wet muskeg, but, after making one or two
attempts, they failed to find a better road among the hills that shut
it in.  The rocky sides of the knolls were seamed by ravines and
covered with banks of stones and short brush, through which it was very
difficult to force a passage.  Then one day, Blake, who felt his head
reel, staggered and sat down heavily.

"I'm sorry I can't keep on my feet," he said.  "Think it's malaria I've
got."

For a moment or two his companions gazed at him in dismay.  His face
was flushed, his eyes glittered, and moving feebly he sank further down
with his back against a stone.  He looked seriously ill, but Harding,
realizing that the situation must be grappled with, resolutely pulled
himself together.

"You can't lie there; the ground's too wet," he said.  "It's drier on
yonder hummock and we'll have to get you across to it.  If you can
stand up and lean on us we'll fix you comfortably in camp in a few
minutes."

When Blake had shakily risen they unstrapped his pack and afterwards
with much trouble helped him to reach a small, stony knoll, where they
made a fire and spread their blankets on a bundle of reeds for him to
lie on.

"Thanks," he said in a listless voice.  "I found it hard to keep my
eyes open all morning and now I think I'll go to sleep.  I'll no doubt
feel better to-morrow."

By and by he fell asleep, but his rest was broken, for he moved his
limbs and muttered now and then.  It was a heavy, grey afternoon with a
cold wind rippling the leaden pools and rustling the reeds, and the
watchers felt dejected and alarmed.  Neither had any medical knowledge,
and they were a very long way from the settlements.  Rocky hillsides
and wet muskegs which they could not cross with a sick companion shut
them off from all help; their provisions were not plentiful, and the
rigorous winter would soon set in.

They scarcely spoke to one another as the afternoon wore away, but when
supper time came Harding roused Blake and tried to give him a little
food.  He could not eat, however, and soon sank into restless sleep
again, and his companions sat disconsolately beside the fire as night
closed in.  Their clothes were damp and splashed with mud, for they had
to cross a patch of very soft muskeg to gather wood among a clump of
rotting spruces.  The wind was searching, the reeds clashed and rustled
drearily, and they could hear the splash of the ripples on a
neighbouring pool, It was all depressing, and as in turn they kept
watch in the darkness their hearts sank.

Next morning Blake, who made an attempt to get up, was obviously worse,
and though he insisted irritably that he would be all right again in a
day or two the others felt dubious.

"How often must I tell you that the thing will wear off?" he said.
"You needn't look so glum."

"I thought I was looking pretty cheerful," Harding objected with a
forced laugh.  "Anyway, I've been working off my best stories for the
last hour, and I really think that one about the Cincinnati man----"

"It's located in half a dozen different places," Blake rejoined.  "You
overdo the thing, and the way Benson grins at your threadbare jokes
would worry me if I were well.  Do you suppose I'm a fool and don't
know what you think?"  He raised himself on his elbow, speaking
angrily.  "Try to understand that this is merely common malaria; I've
had it several times, and it seldom bothers you much when you're out of
the tropics.  Why, Bertram--you've seen my cousin--was down with it a
week at Sandymere; temperature very high, old fool of a family doctor
looking serious and fussing.  Then he got up all right one morning and
rode to hounds next day.  Very good fellow, Bertram; so's his father.
If anybody speaks against my cousin, let him look out for me."

He paused and resumed with a vacant air: "Getting off the subject,
wasn't I?  Can't think with this pain in my head and back, but don't
worry.  Leave me alone; I'll soon be on my feet again."

Lying down, he turned away from them and they exchanged glances, for it
looked as if their comrade's brain were getting clouded.  Blake, who
dozed part of the time, said nothing during the next few hours, and
late in the afternoon an Indian reached the camp.  He carried a dirty
blue blanket and a few skins and was dressed in ragged white men's
clothes.  In a few words of broken English he made them understand that
he was tired and short of food, and they gave him a meal.  When he had
finished it, they fell into conversation and Benson, who understood him
best, told Harding that he had been trapping in the neighbourhood.  His
tribe lived some distance off, and though there were some Stonies not
far away, he would not go to them for supplies.  They were, he said,
quarrelsome people.

Harding looked interested when he heard this and made Benson ask
exactly where the Stony village lay; and when he had been told he
lighted his pipe and said nothing for the next half hour.  Rain had
begun to fall, and though they had built a rude shelter of earth and
stones to keep off the wind in place of the tent, which had been
abandoned to save weight, the raw damp seemed to reach their bones.  It
was not the place to nurse a fever patient in and Harding was getting
anxious.  He had led his comrade into the adventure and felt
responsible for him; moreover, he had a strong affection for the
helpless man.  Blake was very ill and something must be done to save
him, but for a time Harding could not see how help could be obtained.
Then an idea crept into his mind, and he got Benson to ask the Indian a
few more questions about the locality.  When they were answered he
began to see his way, but he waited until supper was over before he
spoke of his plan.

It was getting dark and raining hard; Blake was asleep, the Indian
sitting silent, and the fire crackled noisily, throwing up a wavering
light against the surrounding gloom.

"I suppose I needn't consider you a friend of Clarke's?" Harding
remarked.

"There's no reason why I should feel grateful to him, though I can't
blame him for all my misfortunes," Benson replied.

"That clears the ground.  Well, it must have struck you that the
fellow's account of the whereabouts of the Stony camp doesn't agree
with what the prospectors and this Indian told us.  He fixed the
locality further west and a good deal farther off from where we are
now.  Looks as if he didn't want us to reach the place."

"He's a scheming brute, but I can't see his object in deceiving us."

"We'll leave that point for a minute.  You must allow it's curious that
when we asked him for the easiest way he sent us through these hills
and muskegs; particularly as you have learned from the Indian that we
could have got north with much less trouble had we headed further west."

"If that's true, it has an ugly look," Benson answered thoughtfully.

"Very well; I'm going to put the thing before you as I see it.  Clarke
has lent you money and has a claim on your homestead, which will
increase in value as the settlement grows, while sooner or later
they'll bring a railroad in.  Now, after what you once told me, I don't
think there's any reason why you shouldn't pay him off in a year or two
if you keep steady and work hard, but while you were in his clutches
that looked very far from probable."

"You might have put it more plainly--I was drinking myself to death."
Benson's face grew stern.  "You suggest that this is what the fellow
wished?"

"You can form your own opinion.  My point is that it would suit him if
you didn't come back from this trip.  With nobody to dispute his
statements he'd prove he had a claim to all you own."

Benson started.  "I believe he would stick at nothing; you may be
right.  But I'm only one of the party; what would he gain if you and
Blake came to grief?"

"That," said Harding, "is not so clear."

He glanced at his companion searchingly and seeing that he suspected
nothing, decided not to enlighten him.  Benson seemed to have overcome
his craving, but there was a possibility that he might relapse upon his
return to the settlement and betray the secret in his cups.  Harding
thought Clarke a dangerous man of unusual ability and abnormal
character.  He had learned from Benson something of Blake's history and
had seen a chance of extorting money from Colonel Challoner.  Indeed,
Clarke had made overtures to Blake on the subject, with the pretext of
wishing to ascertain whether the latter was willing to seek redress,
and had met with an indignant rebuff.  This much was a matter of fact,
but Harding surmised that the man, finding Blake more inclined to
thwart than assist him, would be glad to get rid of him.  With Blake
out of the way, the Challoners, father and son, would be at his mercy;
and it unfortunately looked as if his wishes might be gratified.
Harding, however, meant to make a determined effort to save his comrade.

"I don't understand what you're leading up to," Benson remarked.

"It's this--I suspect Clarke intended us to get entangled among these
muskegs where we'd have no chance of renewing our provisions, and
misled us about the Stony village, which he didn't wish us to reach.
Well, he has succeeded in getting us into trouble and now he has to
help us out.  The fellow is a doctor."

Benson looked up eagerly.  "You're going to bring him here?  It's a
daring plan, because it will be difficult to make him come."

"He'll come if he values his life," said Harding drily.  "The Indian
will take me to the village, and perhaps see me through if I offer him
enough; he seems to have some grudge against the Stonies.  I'll have to
drop in upon the doctor late at night when none of his Indian friends
are about."

"But who'll look after Blake?  He can't be left."

"That's your part.  You'd run more risk than I would, and I'm his
partner."

"I'd hate to stay," Benson protested, and added with feeling: "You know
how I'm indebted to Blake."

"It's your place," said Harding.  "Now you had better try to arrange
the thing with the Indian."

It took some time, but the man proved amenable.  He frankly owned that
he would not have ventured near the Stony camp alone and hinted at some
quarrel between its inhabitants and his tribe, originating, Benson
gathered, over a dispute about trapping grounds; but he was ready to
accompany the white man, if the latter went well armed.

"That's fixed; we start at daybreak," said Harding.  "I'll lie down
now; it's your watch."

Five minutes later he was sound asleep and awoke, quietly determined
and ready for the march, in the cold of dawn.  He was a man of the
cities, bred to civilized life and had a just appreciation of the risks
he ran, since he meant to abduct the doctor, who was dangerous to
meddle with, from an Indian village where he was apparently held in
some esteem.  The Stonies, living far remote, had, so Harding
understood, escaped the chastening influence of an occasional visit
from the patrols of the North-West Police.  Moreover there was a
possibility that Clarke might prove too clever for him.  It was
certainly a strange adventure for a business man, but he believed that
Blake would perish unless help was obtained.  He shook hands with
Benson, who wished him a sincere "Good-luck!" and then, with the Indian
leading, struck out through the muskeg towards the shadowy hills.




CHAPTER XIII

CLARKE'S SUMMONS

Harding, who knew there was no time to lose, had cause to remember the
forced march he made to the Stony village.  The light was faint and the
low ground streaked with haze as they floundered through the muskeg,
sinking deep in the softer spots and splashing through shallow pools.
When they reached the first hill bench he was hot and breathless, and
their path led sharply upwards over banks of ragged stones which had a
trick of slipping down when they trod on them.  It was worse where they
were large and he stumbled into the hollows between.  Then they
struggled through short pine-scrub, crawled up a wet gorge where thick
willows grew, and afterwards got entangled among thickets of thorny
canes.  Harding's clothes were badly torn and his boots giving out; his
breath was laboured and his heart beat painfully, but he pressed on
upwards without slackening his pace.

It was exhausting toil, and until he entered the North-West, he had
undergone no physical training and seldom tried his muscles; being left
to shift for himself at an unusually early age had prevented his even
playing any outdoor games.  His career had been a humble one, but it
had taught him self-reliance, and when he was thrown into the company
of men brought up in a higher station he was not surprised that they
accepted him as an equal and comrade.  There was, however, nothing
assertive in the man; he knew his powers and their limitations.  Now he
clearly recognized that he had undertaken a big thing, but the need was
urgent, and he meant to see it through.  He was of essentially
practical temperament, a man of action, and it was necessary that he
should keep up with his Indian guide as long as possible.  Therefore he
braced himself for the arduous task.

In the afternoon they reached a tableland where travelling was slightly
easier, but when they camped without a fire among the rocks one of
Harding's feet was bleeding and he was very weary.  Walking was painful
for the first hour after they started again at dawn, but by and by his
galled foot troubled him less, and he doggedly followed the Indian up
and down deep ravines and over rough stony slopes.  Then they reached
stunted timber; thickly-massed, tangled pines, with many dead trees
among them and a number which had fallen, barring the way.  The Indian
seemed tireless; Harding could imagine his muscles having been
toughened into something different from ordinary flesh and blood.  He
was feeling distress, but for the present there was only one thing for
him to do, and that was to march.  He saw it clearly with his shrewd
sense, and though his worn-out body revolted his resolution did not
flinch.

They forced a way through thickets, they skirted precipitous rocks,
passed clusters of ragged pines, and plunged down ravines.  In the
afternoon the sun was hot, and when it got low a cold wind buffeted
them as they crossed the height of land, but although Harding's side
ached as well as his bleeding feet the march went on.  Then just before
dark he had a glimpse of a wide valley fading into the blue distance
with water shining in its midst and grey blurs of willows here and
there.  The prospect, however, faded swiftly from his sight, and he
found himself limping across a stony ridge into a belt of drifting
mist.  Half an hour afterwards he threw himself down exhausted beside a
fire in a sheltered hollow.

Late at night they stopped a few minutes to listen and look about on
the outskirts of the Indian village.  Thick willows stretched close up
to it with mist that moved before a light wind drifting past them; and
the blurred shapes of conical tepees showed dimly through the vapour.
The night was dark but still, and Harding thought a sound would carry
some distance, but while he felt his heart beating there was nothing to
be heard.  He had seen dogs about the Indian encampments farther south
and was horribly afraid of hearing a warning bark, but nothing broke
the silence and he supposed that Clarke's friends were unable to find
food enough for sledge-teams.  This was reassuring, because the odds
against him were heavy enough, knowing, as he did, that the Indian's
sense of hearing is remarkably keen.

Feeling that his magazine pistol was loose, he signed to his guide and
they moved cautiously forward.  The ground was fortunately clear and
their footsteps made little noise, though now and then tufts of dry
grass which Harding trod upon rustled with what seemed to him alarming
distinctness.  Still nobody challenged them and reaching the centre of
the village they stopped again.  The nearest of the tepees was only
thirty or forty yards away, though others ran back into the mist, and
as Harding stood listening with tingling nerves he clearly recognized
the difficulty of his enterprise.  In the first place, there was
nothing to indicate which tent Clarke occupied, and it was highly
undesirable that Harding should choose the wrong one and rouse an
Indian from his slumbers.  Then it was possible that the man shared a
tepee with some of his hosts, in which case Harding would place himself
at his mercy by entering it.  Clarke was a dangerous man, and his Stony
friends were people with rudimentary ideas and barbarous habits.
Harding glanced at his guide, but the man stood very still, and he
could judge nothing about his feelings from his attitude.  Pulling
himself together with an effort, Harding went on.

Fortune favoured him, for as he made towards a tepee, without any
particular reason for doing so, except that it stood a little apart
from the rest, he saw a faint streak of light shine out beneath the
curtain, This suggested that it was occupied by the white man, and it
was now an important question whether he could reach it silently enough
to surprise him.  Beckoning the Indian to fall behind, he crept forward
with his heart beating painfully and stopped a moment just outside the
entrance.  It was obvious that he had not been heard, but he could not
tell whether Clarke was alone.  Then the Indian, who had crept up
behind him, dragged the doorway open and Harding, hastily stepping in,
stood, ragged, unkempt, and strung up, blinking in the unaccustomed
light.

The tent had an earth floor with a layer of reeds and grass thrown down
on one side.  It was frail and hinted at changing times and poverty,
for the original skin cover had been patched and eked out with the
products of civilization in the shape of cotton flour bags and old
sacking.  In the later repairs sewing twine had been used instead of
sinews.  A wooden case stood open near the reeds, and Harding saw that
it contained glass jars and what looked like laboratory apparatus; a
common tin kerosene lamp hung from the junction of the frame poles,
which met at the point of the cone.  A curious smell, which reminded
him of the paint factory, filled the tent, though he could not
recognize it.

Harding could not tell whether he noted all this at once, or if it
afterwards impressed itself upon him by degrees, because as he entered
Clarke, who sat beside the case, looked up.  It was, Harding thought, a
good test of his nerve, but his face was imperturbable and he showed no
surprise.  There was silence for a moment or two while the Indian stood
motionless with his axe shining as it caught the light, and Harding's
lips grew firmly set.  Then Clarke spoke--

"So you have turned back.  You found the muskeg too difficult to cross,
and I suppose this fellow showed you the way here?"

Harding, who was worn out, crossed the floor to the heap of reeds and
sat down facing Clarke.

"We have come for you and must start at once.  My partner is very
sick--fever he thinks--and you'll have to cure him."

"You're presuming on my consent."

"Yes," said Harding sternly; "I'm counting right on that.  It wouldn't
be wise of you to refuse."

"I don't agree with you.  A shout or a shot would bring in my friends,
and you'd find yourself in a very unpleasant position.  You had better
understand that the North-West Police have never visited this place and
nobody troubles about what goes on up here, while I believe I'm a
person of some influence."  He indicated Harding's guide.  "Then,
though I don't know what he's doing in this neighbourhood, this fellow
belongs to a tribe the Stonies have a grudge against.  On the whole, I
think you have been very rash."

"I guess you're clever enough to see that since I've taken some chances
in coming I'm not likely to be bluffed off now.  But we'll let that go.
The most important thing is that Blake will die unless he gets proper
treatment."

Clarke regarded him with a mocking smile.  "It's a matter of
indifference to me whether Blake dies or not."

"No," said Harding, "I allow it isn't quite so.  On the whole, you
would sooner he did die.  He's in the way."

He could not tell whether this shot had reached the mark, for though
Clarke's eyes were steadily fixed on him the man's face was inscrutable.

"If you're right, it's strange you should urge me to prescribe for him."

"There are some precautions I mean to take," said Harding drily.
"However, I haven't come here to argue.  For reasons of your own, you
sent us into a belt of country which you thought we couldn't get
through.  My notion is that you expected us to be held up there until
our stores ran out and winter set in, when these Stonies would, no
doubt, have moved on.  Well, part of what you wished has happened, but
the matter is taking a turn you couldn't have looked for.  You led us
into difficulties and now you're going to get us out.  I guess delay
means danger--get ready to start."

Then the Indian raised his hand in warning.  Footsteps approached the
tepee with something strangely stealthy in their tread, and Clarke,
turning his head, listened with a curious expression.  Then he looked
at Harding and as the steps drew nearer the American's lips set tight.
His pose grew tense, but it was more expressive of determination than
alarm.  For a few moments none of the party moved and then the attitude
of all relaxed as the footsteps passed and grew indistinct.  Clarke
broke into a faint smile.

"That was not an ordinary Stony but a gentleman of my profession, with
similar interests, going about his business.  There are reasons why he
should undertake it in the dark.  You were right in supposing that you
were in some danger."

Harding felt a shiver.  He had the repugnance of the healthy-minded man
of affairs from any form of meddling with what he vaguely thought of as
the occult; but in that remote, grim solitude he could not scoff at it.

"Understand this," he said curtly.  "I mean to save my partner; I
staked my life on doing so, and since I guess you're not ready to go so
far as that, I've a pretty strong pull on you.  But I've said enough.
You're coming with me--now--and if you make any attempt to rouse your
friends, you'll have a chance of learning something about the other
world at first hand a few seconds afterwards."

Clarke saw that it was not an idle threat.  The American meant what he
said, and he hurriedly put a few things together and made them into a
pack.  Then he turned to Harding with a gesture of ironical resignation.

"I'm ready."

The Indian laid a firm hand on his arm and Harding, who took out his
pistol, extinguished the lamp.

"Your interest in keeping quiet is as strong as mine," he sternly
reminded Clarke.

He set his teeth as they passed a tepee at a few yards distance.  He
could see the dark gap of the doorway and had a nervous fancy that eyes
were following his movements, for now he had succeeded in the more
difficult part of his errand he was conscious of strain.  Indeed, he
feared he was getting shaky and the danger was not yet over.  They were
not clear of the village and a noisy stumble would bring the Indians
out.  Unless they reached camp in the next few days he thought Blake
would die, and the journey was a long and arduous one.  Still, he was
determined that if disaster overtook him, the plotter who had betrayed
them should not escape.  Harding was a respecter of law and social
conventions, but now he had suddenly become primitive under heavy
stress.

They passed the tepee unnoticed, but the tension he felt did not
slacken, because there was another they could not avoid.  Nobody,
however, called to them, and he felt easier as they drew away from the
row of shadowy tents.  Then, moving very cautiously, they reached the
thick willow bluff, where they were comparatively safe, and Harding,
who found it hard to hold himself in hand, feared that he might grow
limp with the reaction.  Difficult as his task had looked, it had been
successfully carried out.

"Get on," he said to Clarke and, walking faster, they plunged into the
open waste.




CHAPTER XIV

THE CURE

It was noon when Harding returned to camp, ragged and exhausted, with
Clarke limping after him in an even more pitiable state.  The latter
had suffered badly from the hurried march, but his conductor would
brook no delay and the grim hints he had been given encouraged him to
the utmost exertion he was capable of.  Blake was alive, but when
Harding bent over him he feared that help had come too late.  His skin
looked harsh and dry, his face had grown hollow, and his thick strong
hair had turned lank and was falling out.  His eyes were vacant and
unrecognizing when he turned them upon Harding.

"Here's your patient," the American said to Clarke.  "We expect you to
cure him, and you had better get to work at once."  Then his face grew
troubled as he asked Benson: "How long has he been like that?"

"The last two days," said Benson.  "I'm afraid he's very bad."

Harding sat down with a smothered groan.  Every muscle seemed to ache,
he could scarcely hold himself upright, and his heart was heavy.  He
would miss Blake terribly; it was hard to think of going on without
him, but he feared that this was inevitable.  He was filled with a deep
pity for the helpless man, but after a few moments his weary face grew
stern.  He had done all that he was able, and now Clarke, whom he
believed to be a man of high medical skill, must do his part.  If he
were unsuccessf

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