"You have fallen out?" she said, and contrived to keep the anxiety she was conscious of out of her voice.

The question, and more particularly the form of it, rather jarred upon Hawtrey, but he answered it.

"Oh no," he said. "As a matter of fact, Sally, you can't fall out nicely with everybody. Now when we fell out you got delightfully angry—I don't know if you were more delightful then or when you graciously agreed to make it up again." He laughed. "I almost wish I could make you a little angry now."

Sally had moved a little nearer to take a kettle off the stove, and she looked down on him with her eyes shining in the lamplight. She realised that she would have to fight Miss Ismay for this man; but there was this in her favour, that she appealed directly to one side of his nature, as Agatha, even if she had loved him, would not have done.

"Would you?" she said. "Dare you try?"

"I might if I was tempted sufficiently."

She leaned upon the table still looking at him mockingly, and she was probably aware that her pose and expression were wholly provocative. Indeed, she could not have failed to recognise the meaning of the sudden tightening of his lips, though she did not in the least shrink from it. She had not the faintest doubt of her ability to keep him at a due distance if it appeared necessary.

"Oh," she said, "you only say things."

Hawtrey laughed, and stooping down picked up a package he had brought from the store.

"Well," he said, "after all, I think I'd rather try if I can please you." He opened the package. "Are these things very much too big for you, Sally?"



The girl's eyes glistened at the sight of the mittens he held out. They were very different from the kind she had hitherto been in the habit of wearing, and when he carelessly took out the fur cap she broke into a little cry of delight. In the meanwhile Hawtrey watched her with a rather curious expression. He was not quite sure he had meant Sally to have the things when he had purchased them, but he was quite contented now. The one gift he had somewhat diffidently offered Agatha since her arrival in Canada had been almost coldly laid aside.

In another few minutes Sally laid out supper, and as she waited upon him daintily or filled his cup Hawtrey thrust the misgivings he had felt further behind him. Sally, he thought with a little dry smile, could certainly cook. When the meal was over he sat talking about nothing in particular for almost an hour, and then stood up. It occurred to him that Sally's mother would be back before very long, and she was a person he had no great liking for.

"Well," he said, "I must be getting home. Won't you let me see you with that cap on?"

Sally, who betrayed no diffidence, put on the cap, and stood before a little dingy mirror with both hands raised while she pressed it down upon her gleaming hair. Then she flashed a smiling glance at him. It was quite sufficient, and as she turned again Hawtrey slipped forward as softly as he could. She swung round, however, with a flush in her face and a forceful, restraining gesture.

"Don't spoil it all, Gregory," she said sharply.

Hawtrey, who saw that she meant it—which was a cause of some astonishment to him—dropped his hand.

"Oh," he said, "if you look at it in that way I'm sorry. Good-night, Sally!"

She let him go, but she smiled when he drove away; and half an hour later she showed the cap and mittens to her mother with significant candour. Mrs. Creighton, who was a severely practical person, nodded.

"Well," she said, "he only wants a little managing if he bought you these, and nobody could say you ran after him. I wouldn't, anyway; some of them don't like it."



CHAPTER XX.

THE FIRST STAKE.

A fortnight had slipped by since the evening Hawtrey had spent with Sally, when Winifred and Sproatly once more arrived at the Hastings homestead. The girl was looking a trifle jaded, and it appeared that the manager of the elevator, who had all along treated her with a good deal of consideration, had insisted upon her going away for a few days now the pressure of business which had followed the harvest had slackened. Sproatly, as usual, had driven her in from the settlement.

When the evening meal was over they drew their chairs close up about the stove, and Hastings thrust fresh birch billets into it, for there was a bitter frost. Mrs. Hastings installed Winifred in a canvas lounge and wrapped a shawl about her.

"You haven't got warm yet, and you're looking quite worn out," she said. "I suppose Hamilton has still been keeping you at work until late at night?"

"We have been very busy since I was last here," Winifred admitted, and then turned to Hastings. "Until the last week or so there has been no slackening in the rush to sell. Everybody seems to have been throwing wheat on to the market."

Hastings looked thoughtful. "A good many of the smaller men have been doing so, but I think they're foolish. They're only helping to break down prices, and I shouldn't wonder if one or two of the big, long-headed buyers saw their opportunity in the temporary panic. In fact, if I'd a pile of dollars lying in the bank I'm not sure that I wouldn't send along a buying order and operate for a rise."

His wife shook her head at him. "No," she said; "you certainly wouldn't while I had any say in the matter. You're rather a good farmer, but I haven't met one yet who made a successful speculator. Some of our friends have tried it—and you know where it landed them. I expect those broker and mortgage men must lick their lips when a nice fat woolly farmer comes along. It must be quite delightful to shear him."

Hastings laughed. "I should like to point out that most of the farmers in this country are decidedly thin, and have uncommonly little wool on them." Then he turned to the rest. "I feel inclined to tell you how Mrs. Hastings made the expenses of her Paris trip; it's an example of feminine consistency. She went round the neighbourhood and bought all the wheat anybody had left on hand up, or, at least, she made me do it."

His wife, who had, as it happened, means of her own, nodded. "That was different," she said; "anyway, I had the wheat, and I—knew—it would go up."

"Then why shouldn't other folks sell forward, for instance, when they know it will go down? That's not what I suggested doing, but the point's the same."

"They haven't got the wheat."

"Of course; they wouldn't operate for a fall if they had. On the other hand, if their anticipations proved correct, they could buy it for less than they sold at before they had to deliver."

"That," said Mrs. Hastings severely, "is pure gambling. It's sure to land one in the hands of the mortgage jobber."

Hastings smiled at the others. "As a matter of fact, it not infrequently does, but I want you to note the subtle distinction. The thing's quite legitimate if you've only got the wheat in a bag. In such a case you must naturally operate for a rise."

"There's a good deal to be said for that point of view," observed Sproatly. "You can keep the wheat if you're not satisfied, but when you try the other plan the margin that may vanish at any moment is the danger. I suppose Gregory has still been selling the Range wheat, Winifred?"

"I believe we have sent on every bushel."

Sproatly exchanged a significant glance with Hastings, whose face once more grew thoughtful.

"Then," said the latter drily, "if he's wise he'll stop at that."

Mrs. Hastings changed the subject, and drew her chair closer in to the stove, which snapped and crackled cheerfully.

"It must be a good deal colder where Harry is," she said with a shiver.

She flashed a swift glance at Agatha, and saw her expression change, but Sproatly broke in again.

"It was bad enough driving in from the railroad this afternoon," he said. "Winifred was almost frozen, which is why I didn't go round by Creighton's for the pattern mat—I think that's what he said it was—Mrs. Creighton borrowed from you. I met him at the settlement a day or two ago."

Mrs. Hastings said that he could bring it another time, and while the rest talked of something else Winifred turned to Agatha.

"It really was horribly cold, and I almost fancied one of my hands was frost-nipped," she said. "As it happens, I can't buy mittens like your new ones."

"My new ones?" said Agatha.

"The ones Gregory bought you."

Agatha laughed. "My dear, he never gave me any."

Winifred pursed her face up. "Well," she persisted, "he certainly bought them and a fur cap, too. I was in the store when he did it, though I don't think he noticed me. They were lovely mittens—such a pretty brown fur."

Just then Mrs. Hastings, unobserved by either of them, looked up and caught Sproatly's eye. His face became suddenly expressionless, and he looked away.

"When was that?" asked Agatha.

"A fortnight ago, anyway."

Agatha sat silent, and was rather glad when Mrs. Hastings asked Winifred a question. She desired no gifts from Gregory, but since he had bought the cap and mittens she wondered what he could have done with them. It was rather disconcerting to feel that, while he evidently meant to hold her to her promise, he must have given them to somebody else. She had, as it happened, never heard of his acquaintance with Sally Creighton, but it struck her as curious that although the six months' delay he had granted her had lately expired, he had neither sent her any word nor called at the homestead.

A few minutes later Mrs. Hastings took up a basket of sewing she had been engaged in, and moved towards the door. Sproatly, who rose as she approached him, drew aside his chair, and she handed the basket to him.

"You can carry it if you like," she said.

Sproatly took the basket, and followed her into another room, where he sat it down.

"Well?" he said, with a twinkle in his eyes.

Mrs. Hastings regarded him thoughtfully. "I wonder if you know what Gregory did with those mittens?"

"I'm rather pleased that I can assure that I don't."

"Do you imagine that he kept them?"

"I'm afraid I haven't an opinion on that point."

"Still, if I said that I felt certain he had given them to somebody you would have some idea as to who it would probably be?"

"Well," said Sproatly reluctantly, "If you insist upon it, I must admit that I could make a guess."

Mrs. Hastings smiled in a manner which suggested comprehension. "So could I," she said. "I shouldn't wonder if we both guessed right. Now you may as well go back to the others."

Sproatly, who made no answer, turned away, and he was talking to Agatha when, half an hour later, a waggon drew up outside the door. In another minute or two he leaned forward in amused expectation as Sally walked into the room.

"I'm going on to Lander's, and just called to bring back the mat you lent us," she said to Mrs. Hastings. "Sproatly was to have come for it, but he didn't."

Sproatly, who said he was sorry, fixed his eyes on her. It was clear to him that Agatha did not understand the situation, but he rather fancied from her expression that Sally was filled with an almost belligerent satisfaction. She was then wearing a very smart fur cap, and she carried a pair of new fur mittens which she had just stripped off in one hand. Sproatly, who glanced at them, noticed that Winifred did the same. Then Mrs. Hastings spoke.

"I don't think you have met Miss Ismay, Sally," she said.

Sally merely said that she had not, and Sproatly became more sure that the situation was an interesting one, when Mrs. Hastings formally presented her. It was clear to him that Agatha was somewhat puzzled by Sally's attitude.

As a matter of fact, Agatha, who said that she must have had a cold drive, was regarding the new arrival with a curiosity she had not expected to feel when she first came in. Miss Creighton, she admitted, was comely, though she was clearly somewhat primitive and crude. The long skin coat she wore hid her figure, but her pose was too virile, and there was a look which puzzled Agatha in her eyes. It was almost openly hostile, and there was a suggestion of triumph in it. Agatha, who could find no possible reason for this, resented it.

In the meanwhile Sally remained standing, and, as she said nothing further, there was a somewhat awkward silence. She was the dominant figure in the room, and the others became sensible of a certain slight constraint and embarrassment as she gazed at Agatha with unwavering eyes. In fact, it was rather a relief to them when at length she turned to Mrs. Hastings.

"I can't stop. It wouldn't do to leave the team in this frost," she said.

This was so evident that they let her go, and Mrs. Hastings, who went with her to the door, afterwards sat down beside Sproatly a little apart from the rest.

"I've no doubt you noticed those mittens," she said softly.

"I did," Sproatly admitted. "I think you can rely upon my discretion. If you hadn't wanted this assurance I don't suppose you'd have said anything upon the subject. It, however, seems very probable that Winifred noticed them, too."

"Does that mean you're not sure that Winifred's discretion is equal to your own?"

Sproatly's eyes twinkled. "In this particular case the trouble is that she's animated by a sincere attachment to Miss Ismay, and has, I understand, a rather poor opinion of Gregory. Of course, I don't know how far your views on that point coincide with hers."

"Do you expect me to explain them to you?"

"No," said Sproatly, "I'm only anxious to keep out of the thing. Gregory, as it happens, is a friend of mine, and, after all, he has his strong points. I should, however, like to mention that Winifred's expression suggests that she's thinking of something."

His companion smiled. "Then I must endeavour to have a word or two with her."

She left him with this, and not long afterwards she and Winifred went out together, while when the others were retiring she detained Agatha for a minute or two in the empty room.

"Haven't the six months Gregory gave you run out yet?" she asked.

Agatha said they had, but it was evident that she had attached no particular significance to the fact that Sally had worn a new fur cap.

"He hasn't been over to see you since."

The girl, who admitted it, looked troubled, and Mrs. Hastings laid a hand upon her shoulder.

"My dear," she said, "if he does come you must put him off."

"Why?" Agatha asked, in a low, strained voice.

"For one thing, because we want to keep you," and Mrs. Hastings looked at her with a very friendly smile. "Are you very anxious to make it up with Gregory?"

A little shiver ran through the girl. "Oh," she said, "I can't answer you that. I must do what is right."

Then, somewhat to her astonishment, her companion drew her a little nearer, stooped and kissed her.

"Most of us, I believe, have that wish, but the thing is often horribly complex," she said. "Anyway, you must put Gregory off again if it's only for another month or two. I fancy you will not find it remarkably difficult."

She turned away with that, but her manner had been so significant that Agatha, who did not sleep very well that night, decided that if it was possible she would act on her advice.

In the meanwhile, it happened that a little very dapper gentleman who was largely interested in the land-agency and general mortgage business was spending the evening with Hawtrey in Wyllard's room at the Range. He had driven round by Hawtrey's homestead earlier in the afternoon, and had deduced a good deal from the state of it, though this was a point he kept to himself. Now he lay in a lounge chair beside the stove smoking one of Wyllard's cigars and unobtrusively watching his companion. There was a roll of bills in his pocket which the latter had very reluctantly parted with.

"In view of the fall in wheat it must have been rather a pull for you to pay me that interest," he said.

"It certainly was," Hawtrey admitted with a somewhat rueful smile. "I'm sorry it had to be done."

"I don't quite see how you made it," persisted the other man. "What you got for your wheat couldn't have done much more than cover working expenses."

Hawtrey laughed. He was quite aware that his companion's profession was not one that was regarded with any great favour by the prairie farmers, but he was never particularly cautious, and he rather liked the man.

"As a matter of fact, it didn't, Edmonds," he said. "You see, I practically paid you out of what I get for running this place. The red wheat Wyllard raises generally commands a cent or two a bushel more from the big milling people than anything put on the market round here."

Edmonds made a sign of agreement. He had without directly requesting him to do so led Hawtrey into showing him round the Range that afternoon, and having of necessity a practical knowledge of farming he had been impressed by all that he had noticed. The farm, which was a big one, had evidently been ably managed until a little while ago, and he felt the strongest desire to get his hands on it. This, as he admitted, would have been out of the question had Wyllard been at home, but with Hawtrey, upon whom he had a certain hold, in charge, the thing appeared by no means impossible.

"Oh, yes," he said. "I suppose he was reasonably liberal over your salary."

"I don't get one. I take a share of the margin after everything is paid."

Edmonds carefully noted this. He was not sure that such an arrangement would warrant one in regarding Hawtrey as Wyllard's partner, but he meant to gather a little more information upon that point by and bye.

"If wheat keeps on dropping there won't be any margin at all next year, and that's what I'm inclined to figure on," he said. "There are, however, ways a man with nerve could turn it to account."

"You mean by selling wheat down."

"Yes," said Edmonds, "that's just what I mean. Of course, there is a certain hazard in the thing. You can never be quite sure how the market will go, but the signs everywhere point to still cheaper wheat next year."

"That's your view?"

Edmonds smiled, and took out of his pocket a little bundle of market reports.

"Other folks seem to share it in Winnipeg, Chicago, New York, and Liverpool. You can't get behind these stock statistics, though, of course, dead low prices are apt to cut the output."

Hawtrey read the reports with evident interest, and, as it happened, they were all in the same pessimistic strain, though he was not aware that his companion had carefully selected them with a view to the effect he fancied they would produce. Edmonds, who saw the interest in his eyes, leaned towards him confidentially when he spoke again.

"I don't mind admitting that I'm taking a hand in a big bear operation," he said. "It's rather outside my usual business, but the thing looks almost certain."

Hawtrey glanced at him with a gleam in his eyes. There was no doubt that the prospect of acquiring dollars by an easier method than toiling in the rain and wind appealed to him.

"If it's good enough for you it should be safe," he said. "The trouble is that I've nothing to put in."

"Then you're not empowered to lay out Wyllard's money. If that was the case it shouldn't be difficult to pile up a bigger margin than you're likely to do by farming."

Hawtrey started, for the idea had already crept into his mind.

"In a way, I am, but I'm not sure that I'm warranted in operating on the market with it."

"Have you the arrangement you made with him in writing?"

Hawtrey opened a drawer, and Edmonds betrayed no sign of the satisfaction he felt when he was handed a somewhat informally worded document. He perused it carefully, and it seemed to him that it constituted his companion a partner in the Range, which was satisfactory. Then he looked up thoughtfully.

"Now," he said, "while I naturally can't tell what Wyllard contemplated, this paper certainly gives you power to do anything you think advisable with his money. In any case, I understand that he can't be back until well on in next year."

"I shouldn't expect him until late in the summer, anyway."

There was silence for a moment or two, and during it Hawtrey's face grew a trifle hard. It was unpleasant to look forward to the time when he would be required to relinquish the charge of the Range, and of late he had been wondering how he could make the most of the situation in the meanwhile. Then his companion spoke again.

"It's almost certain that the operation I suggested can only result one way, and it appears most unlikely that Wyllard would raise any trouble if you handed him several thousand dollars over and above what you had made by farming. I can't imagine a man objecting to that kind of thing."

Hawtrey sat still with indecision in his eyes for half a minute, and Edmonds, who was too wise to say anything, leaned back in his chair. Then Hawtrey turned to the drawer again with an air of sudden resolution.

"I'll give you a cheque for a couple of thousand dollars, which is as far as I care to go just now," he said.

He took a pen, and Edmonds watched him with quiet amusement as he wrote. As a matter of fact, Hawtrey was in one respect, at least, perfectly safe in entrusting the money to him. Edmonds had deprived a good many prairie farmers of their possessions in his time, but he never stooped to any crude trickery. He left that to the smaller fry. Just then he was playing a deep and cleverly thought-out game.

He pocketed the cheque Hawtrey gave him, and then discussed other subjects for half an hour or so until he rose.

"You might ask them to get my team out. I've some business at Lander's and have ordered a room there," he said. "I'll send you a line when there's any change in the market."



CHAPTER XXI.

GREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND

Wheat was still being flung on to a lifeless market when Hawtrey walked out of the mortgage jobber's place of business in the railroad settlement one bitter afternoon. He had a big roll of paper money in his pocket, and was feeling particularly pleased with himself, for prices had steadily fallen since he had joined in the bear operation Edmonds had suggested, and the result of it had proved eminently satisfactory. This was why he had just given the latter a further draft on Wyllard's bank, with instructions to sell wheat down on a considerably more extensive scale. He meant to operate in earnest now, which was exactly what the broker had anticipated, but in this case he had decided to let Hawtrey operate alone. Indeed, being an astute and far-seeing man he had gone so far as to hint that caution might be advisable, though he had at the same time been careful to show Hawtrey only those market reports which had a distinctly pessimistic tone. Edmonds was rather disposed to agree with the men who looked forward to a reaction before very long.

Hawtrey glanced about him as he strode down the street. It was wholly unpaved, and rutted deep, but the drifted snow had partly filled the hollows up, and it did not look very much rougher than it would have done if somebody had recently driven a plough through it. A rude plank sidewalk ran along both sides of it, raised a foot or two above the ground that foot-passengers might escape the mire of the thaw in spring, and immediately behind the sidewalk squat, weatherbeaten, frame houses, all of much the same pattern, rose abruptly. In some of them, however, the fronts were carried up as high as the ridge of the shingled roof, giving them an unpleasantly square appearance. Here and there a dilapidated waggon stood with lowered pole before a store, but it was a particularly bitter afternoon, and there was nobody in the street. The place looked desolate and forlorn, with a leaden sky hanging over it and an icy wind sweeping through the streets.

Hawtrey, however, was used to that, and strode along briskly until he reached the open space which divided the little wooden town from the unfenced railroad track. It was strewn with fine dusty snow, and the huge bulk of the grain elevators towered high above it against the lowering sky. As it happened, a freight locomotive was just hauling a long string of wheat cars out of a side-track amidst a discordant tolling of its bell. It stopped presently, and though Hawtrey could not see anything beyond the big cars he fancied by the shouts which broke out that something unusual was going on. He was expecting Sally, who was going East to Brandon by a train due in an hour or two.

When the shouts grew a little louder he walked round in front of the locomotive which stood still with the steam blowing noisily from a valve, and as soon as he had done so he saw the cause of the commotion. A pair of vicious, half-broken bronchos were backing a light waggon away from the locomotive on the other side of the track, and a fur-wrapped figure sat stiffly on the driving seat. Hawtrey called out and ran suddenly forward as he saw that it was Sally.

Just then one of the horses lifted its fore hoofs off the ground, and being jerked back by the pole plunged and kicked furiously, until its companion flung up its head and the waggon went backwards with a run. Then they stopped, and there was a further series of resounding crashes against the front of the vehicle. Hawtrey was within a pace or two of it when Sally recognised him.

"Keep off," she said, "you can't lead them. They don't want to cross the track, but they've got to if I pull the jaws off them."

This was more forcible than elegant, and the shrill harshness of the girl's voice jarred upon Hawtrey, though he was getting accustomed to Sally's phraseology. He, however, recognised that she would not have his help, even if it would have been of much avail, which was doubtful, and he reluctantly moved back towards the group of loungers who were watching her.

"I guess you've no call to worry about her," said one of them. "She's holding them on the lowest notch, and it's a mighty powerful bit fixing. Besides, that girl could drive anything that goes on four legs."

"Sure," said one of the others. "She's a daisy."

Hawtrey was a little annoyed to notice that in place of being embarrassed by it Sally evidently rather enjoyed the situation, though several of the freight train and station hands had now joined the group of loungers and were cheering her on. He had already satisfied himself that she had not a trace of fear. In another moment or two, however, he forgot his slight sense of disconcertion, for Sally, sitting tense and strung up on the driving seat with a glow in her cheeks and a snap in her eyes, was wholly admirable. There was lithe grace, virility, and resolution in every line of her fur-wrapped figure. It is possible that her appearance would have been less effective in a drawing room, but in the waggon she was in her place and in harmony with her surroundings. Lowering sky, gleaming snow, fur-clad men, and even the big, dingy locomotive, all fitted curiously into the scene, and she made an imposing central figure as she contended with the half-tamed team. Hawtrey was conscious of a stirring of his physical nature as he watched her.

The struggle lasted for several minutes during which the horses plunged and kicked again, until Sally stood boldly erect a moment while the waggon rocked to and fro, a tall, straight figure with a tress of loosened hair streaming out beneath her fur cap, as she swung the stinging whip. Then it seemed that the team had had enough, for as she dropped lightly back into the seat they broke into a gallop, and in another moment the waggon, jolting horribly as it bounced across the track, vanished behind the locomotive. Gregory heard a shout of acclamation as he turned and hurried after it.

Sally, however, drove right through the settlement and back outside it before she could check the horses, and she had just pulled them up in front of the wooden hotel when Hawtrey reached it. He stood beside the waggon holding up his hand to her, and Sally, who laughed, dropped bodily into his arms, which was, as he recognised, a thing that Agatha certainly would not have done. He set her down upon the sidewalk, and when a man came out to take the team they went into the hotel together.

"It was the locomotive that did it," she explained. "They were most too scared for anything, but I hate to be beaten by a team. Ours know too much to try, but I got Haslem to drive me in. I dropped him at Norton's, who'll bring him on."

"He oughtn't to have left you with them," said Hawtrey severely.

Sally laughed. "Well," she said, "I'd quit driving if I couldn't handle any team you or Haslem could put the harness on."

In a general way, the hotels in the smaller prairie settlements offer one very little comfort or privacy. As a rule they contain two general rooms, in one of which the three daily meals are served with a punctuality which is as unvarying as the menu. The traveller who arrives a few minutes too late for one must wait until the next is ready. The second room usually contains a rusty stove, and a few uncomfortable benches; and there are not infrequently a couple of rows of very small match-boarded cubicles on the floor overhead. The Occident was, however, a notable exception. For one thing, the building was unusually large, and its proprietor had condescended to study the requirements of his guests, who came for the most part from the outlying settlements. There were two rooms above the general lounge, one of which was reserved for the wives or daughters of the farmers who drove in long distances to purchase stores or clothing. In the other, dry-goods travellers were permitted to display their wares, and, though this was very unusual in that country, any privileged customer who wished to leave by a train, the departure of which did not synchronize with the hotel arrangements, was occasionally supplied with a meal.

It was getting dusk when Hawtrey and Sally entered the first of the two rooms, where the proprietor's wife was just lighting the big lamp. She smiled at the man, who was, as it happened, a favourite of hers.

"Go right along, and I'll bring your supper up in a minute or two," she said. "I guess you'll want it after your drive."

Hawtrey strode on down a short corridor towards the second room, but Sally stopped behind him a moment.

"Is Hastings in town?" she asked. "I thought I saw his new waggon outside."

"His wife is," said the other woman. "She and Miss Ismay drove in to buy some things."

Sally asked no further questions. It was evident that Mrs. Hastings would not start home until after supper, and as the regular hotel meal would be ready in about half an hour it seemed certain that she would come back to the hotel very shortly. That left Sally very little time, for she had no desire that Hawtrey should meet either Mrs. Hastings or Agatha until she had carried out the purpose she had in hand. It was at Gregory's special request she had permitted him to drive in to see her off, and she meant to make the most of the opportunity. She had long ago regretted her folly in running away from his homestead when he lay helpless, but things had changed considerably since then.

She said nothing about what she had heard to Hawtrey when she entered the second room. It was cosily warm and brightly lighted, and the little table was laid out for two with a daintiness very uncommon on the prairie. It was a change for Sally to be waited on and have a meal set before her which she had not made with her own fingers, and she sank into a chair with a smile of appreciation.

"It's real nice, Gregory," she said. "Supper's never quite the same when you've had to stand over the stove ever so long getting it ready." She sighed whimsically. "When I have to do that after working hard all day I don't want to eat it."

The man felt compassionate. Sally, as he was aware, had to work unusually hard at the little desolate homestead where she and her mother perforce undertook a good many duties that do not generally fall to a woman's share. Creighton, who was getting an old man, was of grasping nature, and only hired assistance when it was indispensibly necessary.

"Well," he said, "I'm not particularly fond of cooking either."

Sally glanced at him with a provocative smile, for he had given her a lead. "Then," she said, "why don't you get somebody else to do it for you?"

This was, as the man recognised, almost painfully direct, but there was no doubt that Sally looked very pretty with the faint flush of colour in her cheeks and the tantalising light in her eyes.

"As a matter of fact, that's a thing I've been thinking over rather often the last few months," he said, and laughed. "It's rather a pity you don't seem to like cooking, Sally."

Sally appeared to consider this. "Oh," she said, "it depends a good deal on who it's for."

Hawtrey became suddenly serious for a moment or two. There was no doubt that he would at one time have considered it impossible that he should marry a girl of Sally's description, and even now he had misgivings. He had, however, almost made up his mind, and he was not exactly pleased that the proprietor's wife came in with the meal just then, and stayed to talk awhile.

When she went out he watched Sally with close and what he fancied was unobtrusive attention while she ate, and though he was sensible of the indelicacy of this, he was once more relieved to find that she did nothing that was actually repugnant to him. After all, there was a certain daintiness about the girl, and her frank appreciation of the good things set before her only amused him. She was certainly much more amusing than Agatha had been since she came out to Canada, and her cheerful laughter had a pleasant ring. When at length the meal was over she bade him draw her chair up to the stove.

"Now," she said, and pointed to another chair across the room, "you can sit yonder and smoke. I know you want to."

Hawtrey remembered that Agatha did not like tobacco smoke, and had always been inclined to exact a certain conventional deference which he had grown to regard as rather out of place upon the prairie.

"That's a very long way off," he objected.

Sally showed no sign of conceding the point as he had expected, and he took out his pipe. He wanted to think, for once more instincts deep down in him stirred in faint protest against what he almost meant to do. There were also several points that required practical consideration, and among them were his financial difficulties, though these did not trouble him so much as they had done a few months earlier. For a minute or two neither of them said anything, and then Sally spoke again.

"You're worrying about something, Gregory?" she said.

Hawtrey admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I am. My place is a poor one, and when Wyllard comes home I shall have to go back to it again. Things would be so much easier for me just now if I had the Range."

The girl looked at him steadily with reproach in her eyes.

"Oh," she said, "your place is quite big enough if you'd only take hold and run it as it ought to be run. You could surely do it, Gregory, if you tried."

The man's resistance grew feebler, as it usually did when his prudence was at variance with his desires. Sally's words were in this case wholly guileless, as he recognised, and they stirred him. He said nothing, however, and she spoke again.

"Isn't it worth while, though there are things you would have to give up?" she said. "You couldn't go away and waste your dollars in Winnipeg every now and then."

Hawtrey laughed. "No," he admitted; "I suppose if I meant to make anything of the place that couldn't be done. Still, you see, it's horribly lonely sitting by oneself beside the stove in the long winter nights. I wouldn't want to go to Winnipeg if I had only somebody to keep me company."

He turned towards her suddenly with decision in his face, and Sally lowered her eyes.

"Don't you think you could get anybody if you tried?" she asked.

"The trouble," said Hawtrey gravely, "is that I have so little to offer them. It's a poor place, and I'm almost afraid, Sally, that I'm rather a poor farmer. As you have once or twice pointed out, I don't stay with things. Still, it might be different if there was any particular reason why I should."

He rose, and crossing the room, stood close beside her chair. "Sally," he added, "would you be afraid to take hold and see what you could make of the place and me? Perhaps you could make something, though it would probably be very hard work, my dear."

The blood surged into the girl's face, and she looked up at him with open triumph in her eyes. It was her hour, and Sally, as it happened, was not afraid of anything.

"Oh!" she said; "you really want me?"

"Yes," said Hawtrey quietly; "I think I have wanted you for ever so long, though I did not know it until lately."

"Then," she said, "I'll do what I can, Gregory."

Hawtrey bent his head and kissed her with a deference he had not expected to feel, for there was something in the girl's simplicity and the completeness of her surrender which, though the thing seemed astonishing, laid a restraint on him. Then, as he sat down on the arm of her chair with a hand upon her shoulder, he was more astonished still, for she quietly made it clear that she expected a good deal from him. For one thing, he realised that she meant him to take and keep a foremost place among his neighbours, and, though Sally had not the gift of clear and imaginative expression, it became apparent that this was less for her own sake than his. She was, with somewhat crude forcefulness, trying to rouse a sense of responsibility in the man, to incite him to resolute action and wholesome restraint, and, as he remembered what he had hitherto thought of her, a salutary sense of confusion crept upon him.

She seemed to recognise it, for at length she glanced up at him sharply.

"What is it, Gregory? Why do you look at me like that?" she asked.

Hawtrey smiled in a rather curious fashion. Hitherto she had made her appeal through his senses to one side of his nature only. There was no doubt on that point, but now it seemed there were in her qualities he had never suspected. She had desired him as a husband, but it was becoming clear that she would not be content with the mere possession of him. Sally, it seemed, had wider ideas in her mind, and, though the thing seemed almost ludicrous, she wanted to be proud of him.

"My dear," he said, "I can't quite tell you—but you have made me rather badly ashamed. In some respects, I'm afraid it's a very rash thing you are going to do."

She looked at him with candid perplexity, and then appeared to dismiss the subject with a smile.

"There is so much I want to say, and it mayn't be so easy—afterwards," she said. "It's a pity the train starts so soon."

"We can get over that difficulty, anyway," said Hawtrey. "I'll come on as far as I can with you, and get back from one of the way stations by the Pacific express."

Sally made no objections, and drawing a little closer to him she talked on in a low voice earnestly.



CHAPTER XXII.

A PAINFUL REVELATION.

A sprinkle of snow was driving down the unpaved street before the bitter wind, when Mrs. Hastings came out of a store in the settlement and handed Sproatly, who was waiting close by, several big packages.

"You can put them into the waggon, and tell Jake we'll want the team as soon as supper's over," she said. "We're going to stay with Mrs. Ormond to-night, and I don't want to get there too late."

Sproatly took the parcels, and Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha, who stood a pace or two behind her with Winifred.

"Now," she said, "if there's nothing else you want to buy we'll go across to the hotel."

They reached it a few minutes later, and were standing in a big and rather comfortless room when Sproatly rejoined them.

"This place is quite shivery," said Mrs. Hastings. "They generally have the stove lighted in the little room along the corridor. Go and see, Jim."

Sproatly went out, and, as it happened, he was wearing gum-boots, which make very little noise. He proceeded along a dark corridor, and then stopped abruptly when he had almost reached a partly-open door, for he could see into a lighted room. Hawtrey was sitting near the stove inside it on the arm of Sally's chair.

Then, though he was not greatly astonished, Sproatly drew back a pace or two into the shadow, for it became evident that there were only two courses open to him. He could judiciously announce his presence by making the door rattle, and then go in and mention as casually as possible that Mrs. Hastings and Agatha were in the hotel. He felt that he ought to do it, but there was the difficulty that he could not warn Hawtrey without embarrassing Sally. Sproatly pursed his face up in honest perplexity as it became evident that the situation was a delicate one, and then decided on the alternative. He would go back quietly, and keep Mrs. Hastings out of the room if it could be done.

"I think you would be just as comfortable where you are," he informed her when he joined the others.

"I'm rather doubtful," said Mrs. Hastings. "Wasn't the stove lighted?"

"Yes," said Sproatly, "I fancy it was."

"But I sent you to make sure."

"The fact is I didn't go in," said Sproatly, uneasily. "There's somebody in the room already."

"Any of the boys would go out if they knew we wanted it."

"Oh yes," said Sproatly. "Still, you see, it's only a small room, and one of them has been smoking."

Mrs. Hastings flashed a keen glance at him, and then smiled in a manner he did not like. It suggested that while she yielded to his objections in the meanwhile she had by no means abandoned the subject.

"Well," she said, "what shall we do until supper? This stove won't draw properly, and I don't feel inclined to sit shivering here."

Then Sproatly was seized by what proved to be a singularly unfortunate inspiration.

"It's really not snowing much, and we'll go down to the depot and watch the Atlantic express come in," he suggested. "It's one of the things everybody does."

This was, as a matter of fact, correct. There are not many amusements open to the inhabitants of the smaller settlements along the railroad track, and the arrival of the infrequent trains is a source of unflagging interest to most of them. Mrs. Hastings fell in with the suggestion, and Sproatly was congratulating himself upon his diplomacy when Agatha stopped as they reached the door of the hotel.

"Oh," she said, "I've only brought one of my mittens."

"I'll go back for the other," said Sproatly promptly.

"You don't know where I left it."

"Then I'll lend you one of mine. It will certainly go on," the man persisted.

Agatha objected to this, and Sproatly, who fancied that Mrs. Hastings was watching him, let her go, after which he and the others moved out into the street. Agatha in the meanwhile ran back to the room they had left, and, finding the mitten, had reached the head of the stairway when she heard voices behind her in the corridor. She recognised them, and turned in sudden astonishment, standing, as it happened, in the shadow, though not far away a stream of light from the door of the room shone out into the corridor. Next moment Hawtrey and Sally approached the door, and as the light fell upon them the blood surged into Agatha's face, for she remembered the embarrassment in Sproatly's manner, and that he had done all he could to prevent her going back for the mitten. Then Hawtrey spoke to Sally, and there was no doubt whatever that he called her "My dear."

Agatha stood still a moment filled with burning indignation, and they were almost upon her before she turned and fled precipitately down the stairway. She felt that this was horribly undignified, but she could not stay and face them. When she overtook the others she had, however, at least recovered her outward composure, and they went on together towards the track. As yet she was only sensible of anger at the man's treachery. It possessed her too completely for her to be conscious of anything else.

Cold as it was, there were a good many loungers in the station, and Sproatly, who spoke to one or two of them, led his party away from the little shed they hung about, and walked briskly up and down beside the track until a speck of blinking light rose out of the white wilderness. It grew rapidly larger, until they could make out a trail of smoke behind it, and the roar of wheels rose in a long crescendo. Then a bell commenced to toll, and the blaze of a big lamp beat into their faces as the great locomotive came clanking into the station.

It stopped, and the light from the long car windows fell upon the groups of watching fur-clad men, while here and there a shadowy object that showed black against it leaned out from a platform. There was, however, no sign of any passengers for the train until at the last moment two figures appeared hurrying along beneath the cars. They drew nearer, and Agatha set her lips tight as she recognised them, for the light from a vestibule shone into Hawtrey's face as he half lifted Sally on to one of the platforms and sprang up after her. Then the bell tolled again, and the train slid slowly out of the station with its lights flashing upon the snow.

Agatha turned away abruptly and walked a little apart from the rest. The thing, she felt, only admitted of one explanation, and she did not wish her companions to see her face for the next minute or two. Sproatly's diplomacy had had a most unfortunate result, and she was sensible of an almost intolerable disgust. She had kept faith with Gregory, at least, as far as it was possible to her, and he had utterly humiliated her. The affront he had put upon her was almost unbearable.

In the meanwhile, Mrs. Hastings walked up to Sproatly, who, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, had drawn back judiciously into the shadow.

"Now," she said, "I understand. You, of course, anticipated this."

"I didn't," said Sproatly with a decision which carried conviction with it. "I certainly saw them at the hotel, but how could I imagine that they had anything of the kind in view?"

He broke off for a moment, and waved his hand. "After all," he added, "what right have you to think it now?"

Mrs. Hastings laughed somewhat harshly. "Unfortunately, I have my eyes, but I'll admit that there's a certain obligation on me to make quite certain before going any further. That's why I want you to ascertain where he checked his baggage to."

"I'm afraid that's more than I'm willing to undertake. Do you consider it advisable to set the station agent wondering about the thing? Besides, once or twice in my career appearances have been rather badly against me, and I'm not altogether convinced yet."

Mrs. Hastings let the matter drop, and they went back rather silently to the hotel, while as soon as supper was over she bade Sproatly get their waggon out and drove away with Agatha. She said very little to the girl during the long, cold journey, and they had no opportunity of private conversation when they reached the homestead where they were to spend the night, which was, as it happened, a relief to Agatha. She hated herself for the thought in her mind, but everything seemed to warrant it, and it would not be driven out. She had heard what Gregory had called Sally at the hotel, and the fact that he must have bought his ticket and checked his baggage earlier in the afternoon when there was nobody about, and then had run down with Sally at the last moment, evidently in order to escape observation, was very significant.

She drove home next day, and on the following morning a man who was driving in to Lander's brought Mrs. Hastings a note from Sproatly. It was very brief, and ran:

"Gregory arrived same night by Pacific train. It is evident he must have got off at the next station down the line."

Mrs. Hastings showed it to her husband.

"I'm afraid we have been too hasty. What am I to do with this?" she said.

Hastings smiled. "Since you ask my advice, I'd put it into the stove."

"But it clears the man. Isn't it my duty to show it to Agatha?"

"Well," said Hastings reflectively, "I'm not sure that it is your duty to put ideas into her mind when you can't be quite certain that she has entertained them."

"I should be greatly astonished if she hadn't," said the lady drily.

Hastings made a little whimsical gesture. "Oh," he said, "you'll no doubt do what you think wisest. In a general way, when you come to me for advice you have made your mind up, and only expect me to tell you that you're right."

Mrs. Hastings thought over the matter for another hour or two. For one thing, Agatha's quiet manner puzzled her, and she did not know that the girl had spent one night in an agony of anger and humiliation, and had then become sensible of a relief that she was ashamed of. There was, however, no doubt that while she blamed herself for it, and in some degree for what had happened, she did feel relief. She was sitting alone for the time being beside the stove in a shadowy room while the light died off the snowy prairie outside, when Mrs. Hastings came softly in and sat down beside her.

"My dear," she said, "it's rather difficult to speak of, but that little scene at the station must have hurt you."

Agatha looked at her quietly and searchingly, but there was only sympathy in her face, and she leaned forward impulsively.

"Oh," she said, "it hurt me horribly, because I feel it was my fault. I was the cause of it."

"How could that be?"

"If I had only been kinder to him he would, perhaps, never have thought of her. I must have made it clear that he jarred upon me. I drove him"—and Agatha turned her face away, while her voice grew a trifle strained—"into that woman's arms. No doubt she was ready to make the most of the opportunity."

Mrs. Hastings decided that the girl's scorn and disgust which had prompted the last outbreak were perfectly natural, but they were, as it happened, not quite warranted.

"In the first place," she said, "I think you had better read this note."

Agatha took it from her, and there was light enough left to show that the blood had crept into her face when she laid it down again. For almost a minute she sat very still.

"It is a great relief to know that I was wrong—in one respect, but you must not think I hated this girl because Gregory had preferred her to me," she said at length. "When the first shock had passed, there was an almost horrible satisfaction in feeling that he had released me—at any cost. I suppose I shall always be ashamed of that."

She broke off a moment, and her voice was very quiet when she went on again.

"Still," she added, "what Sproatly says does not alter the case so very much after all. It can't free me of my responsibility. If I hadn't driven him, Gregory would not have gone to her."

"You consider that in itself a very dreadful thing?"

Agatha looked at her with suddenly lifted head. "Of course," she said. "Can you doubt it?"

Her companion laughed, though there was a little gleam in her eyes, for this was an opportunity she had been waiting for.

"Then," she said, "you spoke like an Englishwoman—of station—just out from the Old Country—but I'm going to try to disabuse you of one impression. Sally, to put it crudely, is quite good enough for Gregory. In fact, if she had been my daughter I'd have kept him away from her. To begin with, once you strip Gregory of his little surface graces, and his clean English intonation, how does he compare with the men you meet out here? What does his superiority consist of? Is he truer or kinder than you have found most of them to be? Has he a finer courage, or a more resolute endurance—a greater capacity for labour, or a clearer knowledge of the calling by which he makes his living?"

Agatha did not answer. She could not protest that Gregory possessed any of these qualities, and her companion went on again.

"Has he even a more handsome person? I could point to a dozen men between here and the railroad, whose clean, self-denying life has set a stamp on them that Gregory will never wear. To descend to perhaps the lowest point of all, has he more money? We know he wasted what he had—probably in indulgence—and there is a mortgage on his farm. Has he any sense of honour? He let Sally believe he was in love with her before you even came out here, and of late, while he still claimed you, he has gone back to her. Can't you get away from your point of view, and realise what kind of man he is?"

Agatha turned her head away. "Ah!" she said, "I realised him—several months ago. They were rather painful months to me. But you are quite sure he was in love with Sally before I came out?"

"Well," said Mrs. Hastings, "his conduct suggested it." Then she laid a caressing hand on the girl's shoulder. "You tried to keep faith with him. Tried desperately, I think. Did you succeed?"

Agatha contrived to meet her companion's eyes. "At least, I would have married him."

"Then," said Mrs. Hastings, "I can forgive Gregory even his treachery, and you have no cause to pity him. Sally's simple—primitive, you would call her—but she's clever and capable in all practical things, She will bear with Gregory when you would turn from him in dismay, and when it's necessary she will not shrink from putting a little judicious pressure on him in a way you could not have done. It may sound incomprehensible, but that girl will lead or drive Gregory very much further than he could have gone with you. She doesn't regard him as perfection, but she loves him."

She broke off, and there was for several minutes a tense silence in the little shadowy room. It had grown almost dark, and the square of the window glimmered faintly with the dim light flung up by the snow.

Then Agatha turned slowly in her chair. "Thank you," she said in a low voice. "You have taken a heavy weight off my mind."

She paused a moment, and then added, "You have been a good friend all along. It was supreme good fortune that placed me in your hands."

Mrs. Hastings patted her shoulder, and then went out quietly, and Agatha lay still in her chair beside the stove. It snapped and crackled cheerfully, but save for that there was a restful quietness, and the room was cosily warm, though she could hear a little icy wind wail about the building. It swept her thoughts away to the frozen North, and she realised what it had cost her to keep faith with Gregory as she pictured a little snow-sheeted schooner hemmed in among the floes, and two or three worn-out men hauling a sled painfully over the ridged and furrowed ice. The man who had gone up into that great desolation had been endued with an almost fantastic sense of honour, and now he might never even know that she loved him. She admitted that she had loved him several months ago.



CHAPTER XXIII.

THROUGH THE SNOW.

Next morning, the mail-carrier, who drove up to the homestead half-frozen and white all over out of a haze of falling snow, brought Agatha a note from Gregory. It was brief, and she read it with a smile of half-amused contempt, though she admitted that, considering everything, he had handled the somewhat embarrassing situation gracefully. This, however, was only what she had expected of him, and she recognised that it was equally characteristic of the man that he had written releasing her from her engagement instead of coming himself. Gregory, as she realised now, had always taken the easiest way, and it was evident that he had not even the courage to face her. She quietly dropped his note—it did not seem worth while to fling it—into the stove.

She could forgive him for choosing Sally. Though she was very human in most respects, that scarcely troubled her, but she could not forgive him for persisting in his claim to her while he was philandering—and this seemed the most fitting term—with her rival. Had he only been honest, she would not have let Wyllard go away without some assurance of her regard which would have cheered him on his perilous journey, and it was clear to her that he might never come back again. Her face grew hard when she thought of it, and she had thought of it of late very frequently. For that, at least, she felt she almost hated Gregory.

A month passed drearily, with Arctic frost outside on the prairie, and little to do inside the homestead except to cook and gorge the stove, and endeavour to keep warmth in one. Water froze solid inside the building, stinging draughts crept in through the double windows, and there were evenings when Mrs. Hastings and Agatha, shivering close beside the stove, waited anxiously for the first sign of Hastings and the hired man, who were bringing back a sled loaded with birch logs from a neighbouring bluff. It was only a couple of miles away, but men sent out to cut fuel in the awful cold snaps in that country have now and then sunk down in the snow with the life frozen out of them. There were other days when the wooden building seemed to rock beneath the buffeting of the icy hurricane, and it was a perilous matter to cross the narrow open space between it and the stables through the haze of shirling snow.

The weather, however, moderated a little by and bye, and one afternoon soon after it did so Mrs. Hastings drove off to Lander's with the one hired man they kept through the winter. Her husband, who insisted upon her taking him, had set out earlier for the bluff, and as the Scandinavian maid had recently been married, Agatha was left in the house with the little girls.

It was bitterly cold, even inside the dwelling, but Agatha was busy baking, and she failed to notice that the frost had once more become almost Arctic, until she stood beside a window as evening was closing in. A low, dingy sky hung over the narrowing sweep of prairie which stretched back, gleaming lividly, into the creeping dusk, but a few minutes later a haze of snow whirled across it and cut the dreary scene in half. Then the light died out suddenly, and she and the little girls drew their chairs close up to the stove. The house was very quiet, but she could hear the mournful wailing of the wind about it, and now and then the soft swish of driven snow upon the walls and roofing shingles.

The table was laid for supper, and a kettle was singing cheerfully upon the stove, but there was no sign of the others, and by and bye Agatha commenced to feel a little anxious. Mrs. Hastings, she fancied, would stay the night at Lander's if there was any unfavourable change in the weather, which seemed to be the case, but she wondered what could be detaining Hastings. It was not very far to the bluff, and as he could not have continued chopping in the darkness it seemed to her that he should have reached the homestead already.

He did not come, however, and she grew more uneasy as the time slipped by, while the wail of the wind grew louder and the stove crackled more noisily, until at last one of the little girls rose with a cry, and she fancied she heard a dull beat of hoofs. It grew plainer until she was sure of it, but soon after that the sound ceased abruptly, and she could not hear the rattle of flung down logs which she had expected. This struck her as curious, since she knew that Hastings generally unloaded the sled before he led the team to the stable. She waited a moment or two, but except for the doleful wind nothing broke the silence now, and when it became oppressive she moved towards the door.

The wind tore it from her grasp when she opened it, and flung it against the wall with a jarring crash, while a fine powder that stung the skin unbearably drove into her face. For a few moments she could see nothing but a filmy, whirling haze, and then, as her eyes became accustomed to the change of light, she dimly made out the blurred white figures of the horses standing still, with the load of birch logs rising a shapeless mass behind them. There seemed to be nobody with them, and though she twice called sharply no answer came out of the sliding snow. Then she recognised the significant fact that the team had come home alone.

It was difficult to close the door, and before she accomplished it her hands had stiffened and grown almost useless, and the hall was strewn with snow, but it was very evident that there was something for her to do. It cost her three or four minutes to slip on a blanket skirt, and soft hide moccasins, with gum boots over them, and then, muffled shapeless in her furs, she reassured the little girls, and opened the door again. When she had contrived to close it, the cold struck through her to the bone as she floundered towards the team. There was nobody she could look to for assistance, but that could not be helped, and it was evident to her that some misfortune had befallen Hastings.

The first thing necessary was to unload the sled, and, though the birches seldom grow to any size in a prairie bluff, some of the logs were heavy. She was gasping with the effort when she had flung a few of them down, after which she discovered that the rest were held up by one or two stout poles let into sockets. Try as she would, she could not get them out, and then she remembered that Hastings kept a whipsaw in a shed close by. She contrived to find it, and attacked the poles in breathless haste, working clumsily with mittened hands, until there was a crash and rattle as she sprang clear. Then she started the team, and the rest of the logs rolled off into the snow.

That was one difficulty overcome, but the next appeared more serious. She must find the bluff as soon as possible, and in the snow-filled darkness she could not tell where it lay. Even if she could have seen anything of the kind, there was no landmark on the desolate level waste between it and the homestead. She, however, remembered that she had one guide. Hastings and his hired man had of late hauled a good many loads of birch logs in, and as this had made a worn-out trail it seemed to her just possible that she might trace it back to the bluff. No great weight of snow had fallen as yet.

Before she set out she had a struggle with the team, for the beasts had evidently no intention of making another journey if they could help it, but at length she swung them into the narrow riband of trail, and plodded away into the darkness at their heads. It was then she first clearly realised what she had undertaken. Very little of her face was left bare between her fur-cap and collar, but every inch of uncovered skin tingled as though it had been lashed with thorns or stabbed with innumerable needles. The air was thick with a fine powder that filled her eyes and nostrils, the wind buffeted her, and there was an awful cold—the cold that taxes the utmost strength of mind and body of those who are forced to face it on the shelterless prairie.

Still she struggled on, feeling with half-frozen feet for the depression of the trail, and grappling with a horrible dismay when she failed to find it for moments together. Indeed, she was never sure to what extent she guided the team, and how far they headed for the bluff from mere force of habit, but as the time went by, and there was nothing before her but the whirling snow, she grew feverishly apprehensive. The trail was becoming fainter and fainter, and now and then she could find no trace of it for several minutes.

The horses, however, floundered on, blurred shapes as white as the haze they crept through, and at length she felt that they were dipping into a hollow. Then a faint sense of comfort crept into her heart as she remembered that a shallow ravine which seamed the prairie ran through the bluff. She called out, and started at the faintness of her voice. It seemed such a pitifully feeble thing. There was no answer, nothing but the soft fall of the horses' hoofs and the wail of the wind, but the latter was reassuring, for the volume of sound suggested that it was driving through a bluff close by.

A few minutes later she cried out again, and this time she felt the throbbing of her heart, for a faint sound came out of the whirling haze. She pulled the horses up, and as she stood still listening, a blurred object appeared almost in front of them. It shambled forward in a curious manner, stopped, and moved again, and in another moment or two Hastings lurched by her with a stagger and sank down into a huddled white heap on the sled. She turned back towards him, and he seemed to look up at her.



"Turn the team," he said.

Agatha did it, and sat down beside him when the horses moved on again.

"A small birch I was chopping fell on me," he said. "I don't know if it smashed my ankle, or if I twisted it wriggling clear—the thing pinned me down. It's badly nipped, any way."

He spoke disconnectedly and hoarsely, as if in pain, and Agatha, who noticed that one of his gum boots was almost ripped to pieces, realised part of what he must have felt. She knew that nobody held fast helpless could have withstood that cold for more than a very little while.

"Oh," she said, "it must have been dreadful!"

"I found a branch," Hastings added. "It helped me, but I fell over every now and then. Headed for the homestead. Don't think I could have made it if you hadn't come for me." He broke off abruptly, and turned to her. "You mustn't sit down. Walk—keep warm—but don't try to lead the team."

Agatha struggled forward as far as the near horse's shoulder. The beasts slightly sheltered her, and it was a little easier walking with a hand upon a trace. It was a relief to cling to something, for the wind that flung the snow into her face drove her garments against her limbs, so that now and then she could scarcely move. Indeed, when her strength commenced to flag, every yard of that journey was made with infinite pain and difficulty. At times she could scarcely see the horses, and again she stumbled along beside them for minutes, blinded, breathless, and half-dazed. She did not know how Hastings was faring, but she half-consciously recognised that if once she let the trace go the sled would slip away from her and she would sink down to freeze.

At length, however, a dim mass crept out of the white haze ahead, and a moment later a man laid hold of her. He told her that Mrs. Hastings was with him, and that the homestead was close at hand. Agatha learned afterwards that they had reached it a little earlier, and had immediately set out in search of her and Hastings. In the meanwhile she floundered on beside the horses with another team dimly visible in front of her until a faint ray of light streamed out into the snow. Then the teams stopped, and she had only a hazy recollection of staggering into a lighted room in the homestead and sinking into a chair. What they did with Hastings she did not know, but by and bye his wife who went with her to her room kissed her before she went out again.

Nobody could have faced the snow next morning, and it was some days later when Watson, who had attended Hawtrey after his accident, was brought over. He did what he could, but it was several weeks before Hastings could use his injured foot again. Before he recovered news was sent him of some difficulty in the affairs of a small creamery at a settlement further along the line, in which he and his wife held an interest, and Mrs. Hastings went East to make inquiries respecting it. She took Agatha with her, and one evening after she had finished the business she had in hand they left a little way station by the Pacific train.

The car they entered was empty except for two people who sat close together near the middle of it. A big lamp overhead shed down a brilliant light, and Agatha started when one of the two looked round as she approached them. In another moment she stood face to face with Hawtrey, who had risen, while Sally gazed up at her with a rather curious expression in her eyes. Agatha, however, was perfectly composed now, and felt no sympathy with Hawtrey, who was visibly confused. She was not astonished that he found the situation a somewhat difficult one.

"You have been to Winnipeg?" she said.

"No," said Hawtrey, with evident relief that she had chosen a safe topic, "only to Brandon. Sally has some friends there, and she spends a day or two with them once or twice each winter. Brandon's quite a lively place after the prairie. I went in last night to bring her back." He turned to his companion. "I think you have met Miss Ismay?"

Agatha was conscious that Sally's eyes were fixed upon her, and that Mrs. Hastings was watching them all with quiet amusement, but she was a little astonished when the girl suggestively moved some wraps from the seat opposite her.

"Yes," she said, "I have. If Miss Ismay doesn't mind, I should like to talk to her."

Hawtrey's relief was evident, and Agatha glanced at him with a smile that was half-contemptuous. He had carefully kept out of her way since he had written her the note, and now it seemed only natural that if there was anything to be said he should leave it to Sally.

"I think I'll go along for a smoke," he said, and retired precipitately.

Mrs. Hastings looked after him, and laughed in a manner at which Sally seemed to wince.

"He doesn't seem anxious to talk to me," she said. "You can come along to the next car by and bye, Agatha."

Then she moved away, and Agatha who sat down opposite Sally looked at her quietly.

"Well?" she said.

Sally made a little deprecatory gesture, "I've something to say, but it's hard. To begin with, are you very angry with me?"

"No," said Agatha. "I think I really am a little angry with Gregory, but not altogether because he chose you."

Sally seemed to consider this for a moment or two before she looked up again.

"Well," she said, "not long ago, I wanted to hate you, and I guess I most succeeded. It made things easier. Still, I want to say that I don't hate you now." She hesitated a moment. "I'd like you to forgive me."

Agatha smiled. "In most respects I can do that willingly."

Sally seemed disconcerted by her quiet ease of manner and perfect candour. It was evidently not quite what she had looked for.

"Then you were never very fond of him?" she suggested.

"No," said Agatha reflectively, "since you have compelled me to say it, I don't think now that I ever was really fond of him, though I don't know how I can make that quite clear to you. It was only when I came out here I—realised—Gregory. It was not the actual man I fell in love with in England."

Sally turned her face away, for Agatha had, as it happened, made her meaning perfectly plain. Somewhat to the latter's astonishment, she showed no sign of resentment when she looked round again.

"Then," she said, "it is way better that you didn't marry him." She paused, and seemed to search for words to express herself with. "I knew all along all there was to know about Gregory—except that he was going to marry you, and it was some time before I heard that—and I was ready to take him. I was fond of him."

Agatha's heart went out to her. "Yes," she said simply, "it is a very good thing that I let him go." Then she smiled. "That, however, doesn't quite describe it, Sally."

Her companion flushed. "I couldn't have said that, but you don't quite understand yet. I said I knew all there was to know about him—and you never did. You made too much of him in England, and when you came out here you only saw the things you didn't like in him. Still, they weren't the only ones."

Agatha started at this, for she realised that part of it was certainly true, and she could admit the possibility of the rest being equally correct. After all, Gregory might possess a few good qualities that she had never discovered.

"Perhaps I did," she admitted. "I don't think it matters now."

"They're all of them mixed," persisted Sally. "One can't expect too much, but you can bear with a good deal when you're fond of any one."

Agatha sat silent awhile, for she was troubled by a certain sense of probably wholesome confusion. It seemed to her that Sally had the clearer vision. Love had given her discernment as well as charity, and, not expecting perfection, it was the man's strong points she fixed her eyes upon.

"Yes," she said at length, "I am glad you look at it that way, Sally."

The girl laughed. "Oh!" she said, "I've only seen one man on the prairie who was quite white all through, and I had a kind of notion that he was fond of you."

Agatha sat very still, but it cost her an effort.

"You mean?" she said at length.

"Harry Wyllard."

Agatha made no answer, and Sally changed the subject, "Well," she said, "after all, I want you to be friends with me."

"I think you can count on that," said Agatha with a smile, and in another minute or two she rose to rejoin Mrs. Hastings.



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE LANDING.

The ice among the inlets on the American side of the North Pacific broke up unusually early when spring came round again, and several weeks before Wyllard had expected it the Selache floated clear. Her crew had suffered little during the bitter winter, for Dampier had kept them busy splicing gear and patching sails, and they had fitted her with a new mainmast hewn out of a small cedar. None of them had been trained as carpenters, but men who keep the sea for months in small vessels are necessarily handy at repairs, and they had all used axe and saw to some purpose in their time. In any case, Wyllard was satisfied when they thrashed the Selache out of the inlet under whole mainsail in a fresh breeze, and when evening came he sat smoking near the wheel in a contemplative mood as the climbing forests and snow-clad heights dropped back astern.

He wondered what his friends were doing upon the prairie, and whether Agatha had married Gregory yet. It seemed to him that this was, at least, possible, for she was one to keep a promise, and it was difficult to believe that Gregory would fail to press his claim. His face grew grim as he thought of it, though this was a thing he had done more or less constantly during the winter. He fancied that he might have ousted Gregory if he had remained at the Range, for Agatha had, perhaps unconsciously, shown him that she was, at least, not quite indifferent to him, but that would have been to involve her in a breach of faith which she would probably have always looked back on with regret, and in any case he could not have stayed. He knew he would never forget her, but it was, he admitted, not impossible that she might forget him. He also realised, though this was not by comparison a matter of great consequence, that the Range was scarcely likely to prosper under Gregory's management, but that could not be helped, and after all he owed Gregory something. It never occurred to him that he was doing an extravagant thing in setting out upon the search he had undertaken. He only felt that the obligation was laid upon him, and, being what he was, he could not shrink from it.

A puff of spray that blew into his face disturbed his meditations, and when by and bye a little tumbling sea splashed in over the weather bow, he rose and helped the others to haul a reef in the mainsail down. That accomplished, he went below and lugged out a well-worn chart, while the Selache drove away to the westwards over a white-flecked sea. This time she carried fresh southerly breezes with her most of the way across the Pacific, and plunged along hove down under the last rag they dare set upon her with the big combers surging up abeam, until at length they ran into the clammy fog close in with the Kamtchatkan beaches. Then the wind dropped, and they were baffled by light and fitful airs, while it became evident that there was ice about.

The day they saw the first big mass of it gleaming broad across their course on a raw green sea, Dampier got an observation, and they held a brief council in the little cabin that evening. The schooner was hove to then, and lay rolling with banging blocks and thrashing canvas on a sluggish heave of sea.

"Thirty miles off shore," said Dampier. "If it had been clear enough we'd have seen the top of the big range quite a way further out to sea. Now, it's drift ice ahead of us, but it's quite likely there's a solid block along the beach. Winter holds on a long while in this country. I guess you're for pushing on as fast as you can?"

Wyllard nodded. "Of course," he said, "you'll look for an opening, and work her in as far as possible. Then, if it's necessary, Charly and I and another man will take the sled and head for the beach across the ice. If there's a lane anywhere I would, however, probably take the smallest boat. We might haul her a league or two, anyway, on the sled if the ice wasn't very rough."

He looked at Charly, who made a little sign.

"Well," he said simply, "I guess I'll have to see you through. Now we've made a sled for her I'd take the boat, anyway. We're quite likely to strike a big streak of water when the ice is breaking up."

"There's one other course," said Dampier; "the sensible one, and that's to wait until it has gone altogether. Seems to me I ought to mention it, though it's not likely to appeal to you."

Wyllard laughed. "From all appearances we might wait a month. I don't want to stay up here any longer than is strictly necessary."

"You'll head north?"

"That's my intention."

"Then," said Dampier, pointing to the chart before them, "as you should make the beach in the next day or two I'll head for the inlet here. As it's not very far you won't have to pack so many provisions along, and I'll give you, say, three weeks to turn up in. If you don't, I'll figure that there's something wrong, and do what seems advisable."

They agreed to that, and when next morning a little breeze came out of the creeping haze, they sailed her slowly shorewards among the drifting ice until, at nightfall, an apparently impenetrable barrier stretched gleaming faintly ahead of them. Wyllard retired soon afterwards, and slept soundly. All his preparations had been made during the winter, and when at length morning broke he breakfasted before he went out on deck. The boat was already packed with provisions, sleeping-bags, a tent, and two light sled frames, on one of which it seemed possible that they might haul her a few miles. She was very light and small, and had been built for such a purpose as they had in view.

In the meanwhile the schooner lay to with backed forestaysail, tumbling wildly on a dim, grey sea. Half a mile away the ice ran back into a dingy haze, and there was a low, grey sky to weather. Now and then a fine sprinkle of snow slid across the water before a nipping breeze. As Wyllard glanced to windward Dampier strode up to him.

"I guess you'd better put it off," he said. "I don't like the weather; we'll have wind before long."

Wyllard only smiled, and Dampier made a little gesture.

"Then," he said, "I'd get on to the ice just as soon as you can. You're still quite a way off the beach."

Wyllard shook hands with him. "We should make the inlet in about nine days, and if I don't turn up in three weeks you'll know there's something wrong. If there's no sign of me in another week you can take her home again."

Then Dampier, who said nothing further, bade them swing the boat over, and when she lay heaving beneath the rail Wyllard and Charly and one Indian dropped into her. It was only a preliminary search they were about to engage in, for they had decided that if they found nothing they would afterwards push further north or inland when they had supplied themselves with fresh stores from the schooner.

They gazed at her with somewhat grim faces as they pulled away, and Wyllard, who loosed his oar a moment to wave his fur cap when Dampier stood upon her rail, was glad when a fresher rush of the bitter breeze forced him to fix his attention on his task. The boat was heavily loaded, and the tops of the grey seas splashed unpleasantly close about her gunwale. She was running before them, rising sharply, and dropping down out of sight of all but the schooner's canvas into the hollows, and though this made rowing easier he was apprehensive of difficulties when he reached the ice.

His misgivings proved warranted as they closed with it, for it presented an almost unbroken wall against the face of which the sea spouted and fell in frothy wisps. There was no doubt as to what would happen if the frail craft was hurled upon that frozen mass, and Wyllard, who was sculling, fancied that before she could even reach it there was a probability of her being swamped in the upheaval where the backwash met the oncoming sea. Charly looked at him dubiously.

"It's a sure thing we can't get out there," he said.

Wyllard nodded. "Then," he said, "we'll pull along the edge of it until we find an opening or something to make a lee. The sea's higher than it seemed to be from the schooner."

"We've got to do it soon," said Charly. "There's more wind not far away."

Wyllard dipped his oar again, and they pulled along the edge of the ice for an hour cautiously, for there were now little frothing white tops on the seas.

It was evident that the wind was freshening, and at times a deluge of icy water slopped in over the gunwale. The men were further hampered by their furs, and the stores among their feet, and the perspiration dripped from Wyllard when they approached a ragged, jutting point. It did not seem advisable to attempt a landing on that side of it, and when a little snow commenced to fall he looked at his companions.

"I guess we've got to pull her out," said Charly. "Dampier's heaving a reef down; he sees what's working up to windward."

Wyllard could just make out the schooner, which had apparently followed them, a blurr of dusky canvas against a bank of haze, and then, as the boat slid down into a hollow, there was nothing but the low-hung, lowering sky. It was evident to him that if they were to make a landing it must be done promptly.

"We'll pull round the point first, anyway," he said.

A shower of fine snow that blotted out the schooner broke upon them as they did it, and the work was arduous. They were pulling to windward now, and it was necessary to watch the seas that ranged up ahead and handle her circumspectly while the freshening breeze blew the spray all over them. They had to fight for every fathom, and once or twice she nearly rolled over with them, while the icy water grew steadily deeper inside her. Then it became apparent by degrees that, as they could not have reached the schooner had they attempted it, they were pulling for their lives, and that the one way of escape open to them was to find an opening of some kind round the point. Its ragged tongue was horribly close to lee of them lapped in a foaming wash when the snow cleared for a minute or two, and they saw that Dampier had driven the Selache further off the ice. She was hove to now, and there was a black figure high up in her shrouds.

Just then, however, a bitter rush of wind hurled the spray about them, and the boat fell off almost beam on to the sea, in spite of all that they could do. The icy brine washed into her, and it seemed almost certain that she would swamp or roll over before they could get way on her. Still, pulling desperately, they drove her round the point. Then, as gasping and dripping they made their last effort, a sea rolled up ahead, and Wyllard had a momentary glimpse of an opening not far away as she swung up with it. He shouted to his companions, but could not tell whether they heard and understood him, for after that he was only conscious of sculling savagely until another sea broke into her and she struck. There was a crash, and she swung clear with the backwash, with all one side smashed in. Then she swung in again just beyond a tongue of ice over which the froth was pouring tumultuously, and the Indian jumped from the bow. He had the painter with him, and for half a minute he held her somehow, standing in the foam, while they hurled a few of the carefully made-up packages in her as far on to the ice as possible. Then, as Wyllard, who seized one sled frame, jumped, she rolled over. He landed on his hands and knees, but in another moment he was on his feet, and he and the Indian clutched at Charly, who drove towards them amidst a long wash of foam.

They dragged him clear, and as he stood up dripping without his cap a sudden haze of snow whirled about them. There was no sign of the schooner, and they could scarcely see the broken ice some sixty yards away. They had made the landing, wet through, with about half their stores, and it was evident that their boat would not carry them across the narrowest lane of water, even if they could have recovered her, which it scarcely seemed worth while to attempt. The sea rumbled along the edge of the ice, and they could not tell if the latter extended as far as the beach. They looked at one another until Wyllard spoke.

"We have got the hand-sled, and some, at least, of the things," he said. "The sooner we start for the beach the sooner we'll get there."