"In other circumstances how we should enjoy this prospect, Lorimer!"

We halted a few minutes, and I agreed with him as I glanced about me. A great slope of snow ran upward above us, and as far as eye could see there was a white confusion of glittering ranges. The footprints of our comrades wound in zig-zags among deep drifts and outcrops of ice-touched rock across the foreground, and perhaps twenty feet below the ledge on which we stood a smooth slide of frozen snow dropped steeply toward the edge of a precipice, through a gully in which we could see the tops of the climbing pines far beneath. A few small clumps of bushes and spruce rose out of this snow.

"It's an awkward place for a lame man, but if we wait much longer we will lose the others," said Ormond, pointing to the distant figures struggling across the dazzling incline.

He moved a few steps, then there was a stumble and a sudden cry. I saw him for a moment slipping down the slanted surface of the rock, and when I reached the edge he hung apparently with one foot on a slippery stone, and his left hand clawing wildly at the snow, which yielded under it. I think his other fingers were in a crevice. The fall might not be dangerous in itself, but it seemed impossible that anybody launched upon that declivity could escape a glissade over the precipice. This struck me in an instant and, grasping a shrub which grew in a crevice, I held out my right hand toward him.

"Get hold, lift yourself with your foot, and I'll drag you up!" I said.

He made a desperate effort, for I could see the veins swell on his forehead, but it was the injured foot which had found hold, and when his chest was level with the edge, still clawing at the treacherous covering, he commenced to slip back again.

"Can't do it. Let go, before I pull you over too!" he gasped.

One reads that in cases of imminent peril men's memories have been quickened and past events rise up before them, but nothing of this kind happened to me, for as far as recollection serves I was conscious only that I could not recover my own balance now, and that there were great beads of sweat on the forehead of the man struggling for his life below who stared up with starting eyes, while my right arm seemed slowly being drawn out of its socket. So I fought for breath, and held on, while I fancy Ormond choked out again: "You fool, let go!" and then, with slow rending, the roots of the shrub gave way, and we plunged downward together.

Ormond was undermost, and he must have struck an uncovered rock heavily, for I heard a thudding shock, and the next moment, driving my heels into the snow, I swept down the incline at a speed which threatened to drive the little sense left in me completely away. Nevertheless, I noticed that Ormond rushed downward head foremost several yards away, and there was a loud crash when he charged through a juniper thicket, and then struck violently against a spruce, which brought him up almost on the verge of the gully. By good luck I slid into a clump of stout saplings, and presently rose to my knees, blinking about me in a dazed fashion. One thing, however, was evident—any rash move would launch me over the sheer fall. Ormond lay still against the slender trunk, and several minutes passed before he raised his head. There was a red stain on the snow beside him, and his voice was uneven.

"You are not a judicious man, Lorimer," he said. "I'm infinitely obliged to you, but no one would have blamed you for letting go."

"We'll let that pass," I answered shortly. "I'm glad I did not. We are in an awkward place, and the first thing is to decide how to get out of it."

There was a wry smile on Ormond's face when he spoke again: "It's certainly a perilous position, and a somewhat unusual one. You and I—of all men—to be hung up here together on the brink of eternity. Still I, at least, am doubtful whether I'll ever get out again; there's something badly broken inside of me."

The hot blood surged to my forehead, for I understood what he meant, but that was a side issue, and, answering nothing, I scanned the slope for some way of ascent. There was none, and nothing without wings could have gained the valley. Ormond, too, realized this.

"All we can do, Lorimer," he said, "is to wait until our friends assist us. In the meantime you might fire your rifle to suggest that they hurry!"

He spoke very thickly. I scraped the snow from the slung weapon's muzzle, for this will sometimes burst a gun, and then a red flash answered the ringing report from the opposite slope, and presently a cry reached us from the foremost of the clambering figures. "Hold on! We're coming to get you out!" it said.

Now most luckily we had brought several stout hide ropes with us, which was a rather unusual procedure. The British Columbian mountaineer will carry a flour bag over moraine and glacier trusting only to the creeper spikes on his heels, and in objecting to the extra weight our guide said derisively: "We've quite enough to pack already, and I guess you don't want to dress us up with a green veil, a crooked club with a spike in the end of it, and fathoms of spun hemp, like them tourist fellows bring out to sit in the woods with."

Nevertheless, I insisted, and now we were thankful for the coupled lariats. They could not lower them directly toward me because of a tree, and when the end lay resting on the snow several yards away I braced myself to attempt the risky traverse. The slope was pitched as steeply as the average roof, and there was ice beneath the frost-dried powder that slid along it. Leaving the rifle behind, I drove the long blade of my knife deep down for a hand-hold before the first move.

"Lie flat and wriggle!" called a man above. "Jam the steel into the hard cake beneath!" and with the cold sweat oozing from my hair I proceeded to obey him. How long I took to cover the distance we could not afterward agree, but once I lay prone for minutes together, with both arms buried in the treacherous snow, which was slipping under me, and the end of the lariat a foot or two away. Then with a snake-like wriggle I grasped it, and there was a cry of relief from the watchers. I got a bight around Ormond's shoulders, and after some difficulty fastened it. One cannot use ordinary knots on hide. Ready hands gathered in the slack, and my rival was drawn up swiftly, while they guided him diagonally around instead of under the jutting shelf from which we had fallen.

Then the end came down again, and with it fast about my shoulders I went back for the rifle, after which they hauled me up, filling my neck and both sleeves with snow in the process. Though Harry laughed, his voice trembled when, as I gained the platform, he exclaimed:

"Well done, partner! You fought gamely, and if you had eaten another bear we should never have landed you."

Harry, I think, had been at one time a trout fisher. Ormond, however, after making an effort to rise, lay limply in the snow.

"I'm very sorry to trouble you, but I can't get up," he said. "Something gone wrong internally and my leg's broken. I'm much afraid you will have to carry me."

It was an arduous undertaking, and even before starting it was necessary to lash his limbs together with a rifle between them by way of splint. After this we spent two hours traversing the next mile or so, and my shoulders ached when with intense satisfaction we found firm earth beneath our feet once more. Ormond was distinctly heavy, and that region is sufficiently difficult to traverse even by a wholly unburdened man, while, hampered by his weight, the two days' march to the crossing might be lengthened indefinitely. Still, we could not leave him there, and, framing two spruce poles with branches between them into a litter, we struggled forward under our burden. We were five partly fed and worn-out men in all, and we carried the litter alternately by twos and fours, finding the task a trying one either way. Probably we could never have accomplished it except under pressure of necessity.

The bronze already had faded in the sufferer's face, his cheeks had fallen in, but though the jolting must have caused him severe pain at times he rarely complained. Instead, he would smile at us encouragingly, or make some pitiful attempt at a jest, and I think it was chiefly to please us that he choked down a few spoonfuls of the very untempting stew we forced on him. Once, too, when I tried to feed him his eyes twinkled, though his lips were blanched, as he said:

"We are playing out our parts in a most unconventional fashion. Ralph Lorimer, are you sure that it is not poison you are giving me?"

Perhaps he would have said more if I had followed his lead, but I did not do so, and these two veiled references were all that passed between us on the subject that most concerned us until almost the end. It was late one night, but there was a beaten trail beneath us and we knew we were running a race for Ormond's life, when at last a glimmer of light appeared among the trunks and the sound of hurrying water increased in volume. We quickened our dragging pace, and when Harry pounded violently on the door of a log building an old man with bent shoulders and long white hair stood before us.

"Ye'll come in, and very welcome," he said. "I heard ye coming down the trail. Four men with a load between them—where are the lave o' ye? The best that's in Hector's shanty is waiting ye."

There was an air of dignity about him which struck me, and I had heard prospectors and surveyors talk about mad Hector of the crossing. When we carried our burden in he knelt and laid back Ormond's under jacket of deerskin before he saw to the broken leg with a dexterity that evinced a knowledge of elementary surgery.

"Is this going to be the end of me?" asked Ormond languidly, and the old man, turning his head, glanced toward me in warning as he answered: "That's as the Lord wills. Yere friends will need to be careful. The leg's no set that ill, but I'm suspecting trouble inside o' ye. With good guidance ye should get over it. Lay him gently yonder while I slip on a better lashing."

He crammed the stove with fuel until the hot pipe trembled to the draught, and soon set a bounteous meal before us—fresh venison and smoked salmon with new bread and dried berries—while he also prepared a broth for Ormond, who drank a little greedily, and then lapsed into slumber. I was for pushing on after a brief rest, but Hector thought differently.

"Neither man nor horse has been drowned while I kept this crossing," he said, "and by the help o' Providence no man will. Can ye no hear the river roaring to the boulders, and would ye have her wash ye out mangled out o' human image into the bottomless pool? Maybe ye'll no like the passage in the light o' dawn, but ye cannot cross till then."

He spoke with a tone of certainty, and knowing that only those who live by them can predict the eccentric rise and fall of these torrents I was glad to defer to his judgment. It was only for Ormond's sake that we desired to press on at all, and Harry observed truthfully, "It wouldn't do the poor fellow any good to drown him."

It was late, but we still loitered about the stove, and when once the old man stood in the open doorway glancing toward the foaming rush of the river that I could see beyond him, as though to gauge its force by the roar which now filled the room, one of the party remarked: "Old Hector's a curious critter, with a kink inside his brain, but there's many a free miner owes a big debt to him. He knows each trick of the river; the Siwash say it talks to him, and when he says clear passage I guess you can cross. I've heard that the Roads and Trails Authorities allow him a few dollars subsidy, but he doesn't stay here for that. He was mixed up in some ugly doings in the gold days, and reckons he's squaring it by keeping the crossing. And I guess he comes pretty near doing it, too, for there's a good many lives to his credit, if that counts for anything, and I'm figuring it does."

He ceased as our host returned and said, "She's falling half-a-foot an hour, an' for the sake of the sick man I'll see ye over with the break of dawn. Got hurt on the gold trail—ye need not tell me. There's no a sand bar or gully from Fraser till Oominica Hector did not travel thirty years ago. They came up in their thousands then, an' only the wolf an' eagle ken where the maist o' them lie."

"That's true," said the grizzled prospector. "I was in the last of it when Caribou was played out and we struck for the Peace country and Cassiar," and Hector stared past him through the smoke wreaths with vacant eyes that seemed to look far back into bygone years.

"There was red gold to be had for the seeking then," he said. "We won it lightly, an' we spent it ill. Ay wine an' cards, an' riot' when they brought the painted women in, until the innocent blood was spilt, and Hector came down from Quesnelle with the widow's black curse upon him—but it was his partner shot Cassell in the back. The widow's curse; and that's maybe why Mary Macdonal' lies long years her lone among the hills o' Argyle."

"Tell us how you cleaned out the Hydraulic Company, Hector," said the prospector, and added aside to me, "I'm switching him off onto another track. He's not cheerful on this one, and it's hardly fair play to listen while he gives himself away."

Then we heard true stories of the old mad days, tales of grim burlesque and sordid tragedy, which have never been written, and would not be credited if they were, though their faint echoes may still be heard between the Willow River and Ashcroft on the Thompson. Long afterward when Harry and I discussed that experience he said, "Say little about Hector; one must know these mountains well to understand him. I never saw any one quite like him. He spoke like a Hebrew prophet, and we obeyed him as though he were an emperor."

I slept in a splendid dry blanket under a bearskin which Hector spread over me, and a dim light was in the eastern sky when the old man roused me, saying, "If ye are stout at the paddle we'll try the river noo."

The others were growling drowsily as they rose to their feet, and I saw that Ormond's gaze was fixed on me meaningly.

"You'll take me over now won't you, Lorimer?" he said as I bent over him. "I feel that each hour is precious, and I'm longing above all things to see Miss Carrington before I go. It is for her own sake partly."

I had forgotten our rivalry, and my voice was thick as I promised, while Ormond sighed before he answered faintly:

"It might have been different, Lorimer. It's a pity we didn't know each other better three years ago."



CHAPTER XXV

ORMOND'S LAST JOURNEY

"Launch her down handy. Bring the sick man along!" called some one outside; and when we carried Ormond out I saw the others running a big Siwash canoe down over the shingle, and the dark pines rising spires of solid blackness against the coming day. It was bitterly cold, and white mist hung about them, while huge masses of rock rose through the smoke of the river, whose clamor filled all the hollow. None of us quite liked the task before us, for man's vigor is never at its highest in the chilly dawn; but I remembered Ormond's eagerness to continue the journey. So we laid him gently on our blankets in the waist, and thrust out the long and beautifully modeled craft, which was of the type that the coastwise Siwash use when hunting the fur seals. I knelt grasping the forward paddle until Hector, who held the steering blade, said: "If ye'll follow my bidding I'll land ye safe across. Together! Lift her all!"

The light shell surged forward to the sturdy stroke, for several of those behind me were masters of the paddle, and as I plied my blade I felt with a thrill that it was good to fight the might of the river in such a company. Snowy wreaths boiled high about the shearing prow, I could hear the others catch their breath with a hiss, and once more after a heavy thud the cedar floor seemed to raise itself beneath me and leap to the impulse, while, with a hardening of every muscle, I swept the leaf-shaped blade outward ready for the dip. There was spray in my eyes, and bearing down on us through it a boulder, with dim trunks opening and closing beyond; then I saw only the bird's head on the prow, for some one cried behind that my stroke was slow, and by the rush of foam and the shock of thudding blow I knew that the others' blades were whirling like flails.

The rock loomed nearer, the river piled against its battered feet, and I hazarded a glance over my shoulder, which showed me a row of set faces turned toward the bow, with stout arms and the flats of redwood blades swung out before them, until with a swing of shoulders the heads went down, and a white wave burst apart before the stern. Looking forward the next instant I saw that the rock lay right athwart our way; but the others had blind confidence in our pilot.

"Back ye on the up-stream; drive her yere hardest, down!" he called.

Then the current strove to wrest my dipped blade away, as with the paddles on one side held fast by sinewy wrists the craft turned as on a pivot, and lurching on the backwash whirled past the stone, after which the cry was: "Drive her all!" and we shot away on the eddy with our faces turned slantwise up-stream. This was well, for close below the whole weight of the current hurled itself in fury upon a ragged barrier, and I understood that Hector had calculated our impetus to a quarter fathom. There was a fight to reach the landing, and with any other than the crew behind me the river might have won; but four of the lean hard men had fought many such battles, and though the trunks raced up-stream we closed with the shore until the shock of the bows on shingle flung me backward.

Our next proceeding was to portage a smaller craft several hundred yards up the river, for Hector to make the return passage, and then, as we thanked him for the food and the small comforts for Ormond that he forced on us, the old man said:

"Ye're very welcome, an' I'm not wanting yere dollars. Will I take payment for a bit of dried venison, when the Almighty freely gives me all the good fish in the river an' the deer in the woods? Go, an' haste ye; yon man is needing the aid of science."

Then he turned away, and watched us from the shingle as we took up Ormond's litter, and the last that we ever saw of him was a tall lonely figure which vanished into the gray smoke of the river as we plodded up the climbing trail. Still, even now, that lonely figure rises up before me.

"Old Hector tells strange things when the fit takes him. Used to speak our language—it's curious, he talks like some of them emigrants from the old country now," a man beside me said. "But you can stake your last dollar he isn't mad. No, sir, it's quaint he is. I've had my voyageur training in the frozen country under the H. B. C, but when it's dead knowledge of a rapid he'll beat me easy. Some day the river will get him, and then we'll miss him bad."

In due time we reached a shingle-roofed settlement, where a man who had some local reputation for skill in healing horses examined our companion.

"He's pretty well played out," he said. "Ship him straight down to Vancouver in a sleeping-car, and don't you let any of them bush-doctors get their claws on him. I know when a job's too big for me, and this is one. You'll fetch up in time for the Pacific mail if you start now in a wagon."

"What did that fellow say?" asked Ormond, and when I judiciously modified the horse-doctor's verdict he smiled understandingly.

"That's a wise man," he said, "and I can guess what he told you. Lorimer, I know I'm sinking fast, and if you leave me here I'll die before you can send a doctor up. Probably I'll also die in Vancouver, but every man is justified in making a fight for his life—and there's another reason why I should get there first."

We hired a light wagon, for a passable trail led to the railroad, and perhaps because time was scanty, or the jolting of the wagon was more trying than the swing of the litter, our patient grew worse, and I was thankful at last to see him safe in a berth of the sleeper on the Pacific express. I had grown almost as impatient as Ormond, and I recollect nothing of the journey except that when the lights of Port Moody glittered across the forest-shrouded inlet he said: "Lorimer, I've a stupid prejudice against a hospital. Please take me to Wilson's instead. He lives alone, and I did him several services—you can tell him that it will not be for long."

So when we reached the station Harry volunteered to find the best doctor in the timber city—for hewn stone had only begun to replace sawn lumber then—and arrange for transit to Wilson's house; because he said that it was my particular duty to tell Colonel Carrington and Grace. An hour passed before I traced them, and then I found them at a function given to celebrate the starting of some new public enterprise, and it was with hesitation that, followed by Calvert, I entered the vestibule of the brilliantly lighted hall. We gave a message to a bland Chinese attendant, and waited until returning he beckoned us through a crimson curtain, which swung to behind, and I found myself standing bewildered under a blaze of light in a ball-room.

There was a crash of music, a swishing of colored dresses, and then, as the orchestra ceased, we stood before the astonished assembly just as we had left the bush, in tattered fur wrappings and torn deerskin, with the stains of leagues of travel on our leggings, while I recollect that a creeper-spike on my heel made holes in the polished marquetry. All eyes were turned toward us.

"This is considerably more than I bargained for," growled Calvert. "I feel guiltily like the man who brought the news to Edinburgh after Flodden. What did you play this confounded trick upon us for, John?"

"John savvy Miss Callington," said the unblushing Mongolian; and Calvert added savagely:

"Then hide us somewhere, and tell her, before I twist your heathen neck for you."

I noticed Martin Lorimer moving toward me; but before he reached us Grace came up, a dazzling vision of beauty.

"I am thankful to see you back safe, Ralph, and hear you have news for me," she said. "Lawrence Calvert, the same applies to you."

It was bravely done, for few women would have cared to link themselves publicly with such a gaunt and tattered scarecrow as I undoubtedly was then; but Grace was born with high courage and a manner which made all she did appear right. When Calvert said that he would send for Colonel Carrington, she calmly placed her hand within my arm, and added:

"We will find quietness yonder in the empty supper-room. You have made me anxious."

Then, doubtless to the wonder of many citizens' daughters and wives, we passed together, a sufficiently striking couple, across the hall; and when at length we escaped the curious eyes, Grace held me back at arm's length.

"You look thin and haggard, Ralph," she said. "Something has happened. Now begin, and tell me clearly all about it."

I did not know how to commence, and I proceeded awkwardly to temporize, though I really meant what I said.

"It was the fault of that stupid Chinaman, Grace, and I am sorry. It was so courageous of you to come to me before them all."

She looked at me with a curious mingling of pride and humor. "Am I, then, so little as to fear a few inquisitive women? And do you fancy that I loved you for your prepossessing exterior? Now, sir, before you offend me further, at once begin."

I placed a lounge for her, and leaned over it as I said, "It is about Geoffrey. We went up prospecting, and found his party in difficulties. Geoffrey is—"

"Not dead!" she said with a shudder, clutching the arms of the chair. And I laid my hand soothingly on one of hers as I answered:

"No, but he is hurt, and he is longing to see you. He is in Vancouver now. Listen, I will tell you about it."

"Poor Geoffrey!" she said when I had finished, while a tear glistened on her long lashes. "Geoffrey, my old playmate! I can hardly believe it. Ralph, there are very few like him. He is in all things a true-hearted gentleman. He stood between us; but how many others would have played their part so chivalrously when he had the power through my father to force me to his will. And—may I be forgiven for it—more than once I had hard thoughts of him. And now he is dying! Take me at once to see him."

Shortly afterward a voice reached us through an open door. It was Calvert's, saying, "I want you to understand, sir, that if we had not struck Lorimer's camp we should have starved to death. I saw the accident from a distance, and again it's my firm opinion that he ran the utmost risk to extricate Ormond. If the latter were my own brother I should consider myself indebted to him for life."

"I am glad to hear it," answered an unseen person, whom it was easy to recognize as the footsteps drew nearer. "Still, one must take precautions; and, as I observed, in the circumstances some people might have suspicions. I may say that, indirectly, Lorimer knew that he would profit by my partner's death."

I started, and would have risen, burning with wrath, but Grace's clasp held me fast. The next moment her father and Calvert entered the room. The former glanced toward us in cold surprise; and then, in a hard, ringing tone, Grace said:

"There is still, I hope, a little charity left in the world. The reference is hardly becoming. There are others beside Mr. Lorimer who would benefit, directly, by Geoffrey Ormond's death."

I would have spoken, but she prevented me; and her father stood for a moment speechless with astonishment. Grace was a dutiful daughter, and, though he must have tried her patience hardly now and then, I fancied that this was the first time she had ever openly defied him; while I saw that the shaft had gone home. Colonel Carrington was not, however, to be shaken into any exhibition of feeling, for he turned to me with his usual chilliness:

"I congratulate you on your lucky escape," he said. "Calvert has told me. If you are quite ready, Grace, and will get on your wrappings, we will drive over and visit the sick man immediately."

So, seeing that my presence was by no means desired, I saluted the Colonel with stiffness, and hurried on foot in the direction of Wilson's house. He was a bachelor, it appeared, who dealt in mining gear, and during their business intercourse had made friends with Ormond. Now he was absent inland, but his housekeeper had placed the pretty wooden dwelling at our patient's disposal. What passed between the latter and Colonel Carrington I do not know, but when Grace met me on the stairway as I entered she said:

"He told us how much you had done for him, and made my father believe it even against his will."

Presently the surgeon came down.

"I can do little for him," he said. "There are internal injuries—I needn't describe them—which practically leave no hope of recovery. You can't get a trained woman nurse for love or money, and it rests between yourselves and a Chinaman. I fancy that he would prefer you. I don't know how he stood the journey."

"We did our best, and he was very patient," I said. And the surgeon answered:

"I have no doubt you did, and it speaks well for your comrade's fortitude. You need not blame yourselves, however, for from the first he could not have got better."

"I'll take first watch," said Harry, when, after giving us full instructions, the surgeon departed. "Miss Carrington has already insisted on helping. I've sampled Wilson's wardrobe, but his things would split up if you tried to get into them. Go out and borrow or buy some anywhere. You can't expect to meet Miss Carrington in that most fantastic disarray. I've taken quarters at the Burrard House, and it's not your turn until to-morrow. The Colonel has graciously signified his approval of our arrangements."

When my watch commenced the next day Ormond seemed pleased to see me, and Grace, who was spreading southern flowers in the room, withdrew. Then Calvert and Colonel Carrington came in with a lawyer, and I raised Ormond so that he could see them. Outside, and not far below the window, bright sunlight beat down upon the sparkling inlet, and across it the mountains rose in a giant wall. Ormond glanced at them and sighed. Then he said with slow distinctness:

"Put it down in your own fashion. This is the gist of it: I, Geoffrey Ormond, being now at least perfectly sound in mind, bequeath my gray horse at Day Spring, all my guns and rifles, with my silver harness and two pedigree hunters at Carrington, to Ralph Lorimer, in token of friendship and gratitude for a courageous attempt at my rescue when by accident I fell from a rock. I especially desire this inserted, Mr. Solicitor. You quite understand what I am saying, Colonel Carrington?"

There was a significant smile in his eyes as they met mine, and something rose in my throat threatening to choke me when he added aside: "You will accept these things as a memento of our last march, I hope? With this exception, I bequeath my property in stocks and lands of all and every kind—I do not enumerate, or appoint other executor—to Colonel Carrington of Carrington Manor, the balance remaining after his death to revert to his daughter Grace. Set it all out in due form, and give me the paper to sign."

Remembering what Grace once told me I fancied that an expression of unutterable relief smoothed out the wrinkles of anxiety on the legatee's brow, but I may have been mistaken in this. There was a curious look in Ormond's face, and I understood the depth of his loyalty to Grace. It struck me with a shock that Ormond, in spite of his apparent carelessness, realized how far matters had drifted, and hoped to spare her the painful discovery. Then he lay back struggling for breath, when, after the will was signed, at a signal from the doctor the others withdrew. Perhaps an hour passed while I kept watch alone before he spoke again, saying very faintly:

"It's strange, Lorimer, that circumstances should constitute you my protector. It's not the usual ending of a very old story. A rich man and a poor man loved the same woman, and—this is where the strangeness happens, perhaps because of all women she was most worthy to be loved—she looked kindly upon the poorer man. The other had all that fortune could give him save what he most desired, and being older he waited patiently, trusting her heart would turn toward him, and when at last he learned the truth he had not courage to give her up, but waited still, hoping, he hardly knew for what, against hope. Then circumstances held them closer together in a bond that even for her sake he dare not break, until at last the knot was cut. Lorimer, we fought it out fairly, you and I. Now you have won, and I am dying. I only ask you to be good to her."

I turned my head aside, for I could say nothing appropriate, and he added:

"I should like you to keep those rifles, and when some day Grace receives the reversion she will find it but little. We made some heavy losses in joint ventures, her father and I—you will tell her to remember that. I think now all is settled. God bless her!"

He slept or lay quite still for some time, and once more, knowing what I knew, I wondered at the greatness of his nature, for it was evident that, realizing that his love was hopeless, he had stood by her father only to serve her. Then he said feebly:

"Lift me a little, Lorimer, so that I can see the moonrise on the snow. Before another nightfall I shall have followed your partner on the unknown trail."

I raised him on the pillows, and then sat by the window, from which—because the lamp that tired his eyes had been turned very low—I could see the shimmer of stars on the dark breast of the inlet, which was wrapped in shadow, and a broad band of silver radiance grow wider across the heights of snow, until Grace came in softly with more blossoms from sunny Mexico.

Ormond saw her, and he had probably forgotten me, for there was a great longing in his voice as he said huskily: "Will you kiss me, Grace, for the first and last time since we were innocent children?"

She bent over him a compassionate figure, etherealized by the pale light that touched her through the eastern window, and I went out and waited on the stairway until, after the surgeon went in, she passed me, sobbing, and stilled an expression of sympathy with a lifted hand. That was the last I saw of Geoffrey Ormond in this life, for when next I looked at him he lay very white and still with the seal of death upon him, and I knew that a very clean and chivalrous soul had gone to its resting-place. I touched his cold forehead reverently, and then turned away, mourning him, heaven knows, sincerely, and feeling thankful that when tempted sorely I had kept my promise that day in the bush as I remembered his words, "We have fought it out fairly."



CHAPTER XXVI

THE TRIAL

Geoffrey Ormond was duly laid to rest in Canadian soil, and it was long before the disastrous expedition was mentioned among us. After all, its painful record was not an unusual one, for even to-day, when wagon roads have been driven into the mountain-walled forests where only the bear and wood-deer roamed before, all who go out on the gold trail do not come home. I was anxious to return to Fairmead, so that as soon as decency permitted I called on Colonel Carrington, and though I longed to challenge what he had said to Calvert, I contented myself with formally renewing my previous request.

He listened with cold patience, but I did not like his very quietness, and, though I believe that he sincerely regretted Ormond's death, I fancied that he was looking more hopeful.

"I am afraid that you are again asking too much, and your request is characterized rather by assurance than by common sense," he said. "I need not recapitulate my former reasons, but, in addition to them, I wonder whether you have read this. As you do not allude to it, you probably have not."

He produced a clipping from a Winnipeg paper, and because Western journalism is conducted in a refreshingly frank style of its own, I read with growing resentment the following paragraph, which, the cutting being still in my possession, is quoted verbatim. It commenced with the heading, "The prosecutor skipped by the light of the moon," and continued: "In connection with the recent arrest of three cattle thieves we have on good authority a romantic story. The case is meanwhile hanging fire and won't go off because of the mysterious absence of the prosecutor, one Lorimer of Fairmead, who has vanished from off the prairie, and will probably not appear again. Circumstances point to his being one of the frolicsome Lotharios who occasionally find the old country sultry, and he apparently developed a tenderness for the wife of one of the prisoners. As a result, there were complications, and she left her home. The husband went to seek her on the wide prairie, and some bad man, after trying to shoot him, threw him into a sloo. We don't know whether this was the prosecutor, but should think so. Then the husband swore vengeance, and it is supposed posted the cattle thieves so that they could clean out the wicked betrayer's stock. Now the lawyers are awaiting their witness, sorrowing, and can't find him, while the boys are saying that if he doesn't reappear the accused will get off."

"That is hardly a desirable certificate of character for my daughter's suitor," said Colonel Carrington.

"Do you believe this infamous libel?" I asked fiercely. And his thin lips curled as he answered:

"Frankly, I do not—that is to say, not the whole of it. But there are others who will; and I can hardly congratulate you on your generally accepted reputation. That alone would be a sufficient barrier to an alliance with my family."

"But you almost made a conditional promise," I said, mastering my wrath. And the Colonel answered lightly:

"I merely said that we would discuss the affair again; and we have done so. Several things have transpired in the meantime, unfortunately for you."

"Then there is nothing but open defiance," I said. "I made you a certain promise in return, and I kept it. But I warn you now that I will marry Miss Carrington in spite of you. As to that clipping, the prosecutor will be found, and if there is a law in Canada a full apology will be printed in the journal. I have nothing more to say."

"You have said sufficient, and I think you are foolish. Any legal action will only make a hole in your scanty exchequer. I wish you good morning," and Colonel Carrington held the door wide open, while, boiling over with fury, I took myself away.

I have often since then pondered over that interview, and could only guess at the reason for the Colonel's evident change of front. I do not think it was due to the paragraph; but if he had some fresh scheme in contemplation we never learned it, and Colonel Carrington is past all explanations now.

When I had partly recovered I showed Harry the paper, and he frowned as he said: "I always anticipated something like this; but of course the present is not the time to tell you so. It rose out of the cattle deal; and you will take whatever steps you think best at our joint expense. In any case, we have only the one purse between us. The sooner you go back the better."

It was good advice, and I proceeded to act on it by telegraphing up the line for a messenger to ride to Harry's camp and send down any letters that might be waiting, after which I sought an interview with Grace. She seemed filled with a wholly unusual bitterness against her father, but made me promise with some reluctance to wait a few months longer before deciding on anything definite.

Harry returned forthwith to his post, but I waited until the mail brought me several letters, reforwarded from Fairmead. One was a request to call on the police authorities, on a date already passed, in connection with the cattle thieves' trial, and there were two from the Winnipeg solicitor, in the latter of which he said: "I cannot understand your reticence, and must state that your mysterious absence tends to confirm unpleasant rumors about your character. It may also involve you in legal difficulties, and I trust you will at once communicate with me."

I ran to the telegraph office, and, after sending a message, "Expect me by first express," I found Martin Lorimer, to whom I had given an account of my interview with the Colonel, waiting in my quarters. He, too, possessed a copy of the wretched paper, and, flinging it down before me, said, "Hast seen this, lad? A lie, you needn't tell me—it's a black lie. But there's folks that will believe it, for the same story once deceived me. You'll go straight back and sue them. I'm coming too. We'll make them retract it or break them, if there's justice in the land. Alice has gone south to California with a big railroad man's wife, and I'm longing for something to do. There's another matter. Ralph, I've seen the Colonel."

"Seen Colonel Carrington?" I said with dismay. And Martin Lorimer answered dryly:

"Ay, I've seen him, and had a plain talk with him. Nay, I'm not going to tell thee now what I said; but it bit, and he didn't like it. Ralph, lad,"—and he nodded toward me with a chuckle—"his daughter's worth the winning. My own girl says so; and thou shalt have her."

Martin Lorimer was hard to turn aside from any object on which he had set his mind—but so, as everybody knew, was Colonel Carrington—and I fear that I abused him inwardly for a meddling fool, and reflected on the necessity for deliverance from the blunders of well-meaning friends. The harm was done, however; and it was useless to attempt to draw particulars as to his intentions from my uncle, so I tried to forget the matter. All he would say was, "Wait and thee will see," or, again, with a wise shake of his head in the broad mill parlance, "Thou never knows."

We boarded the next train for Winnipeg, and, after calling on the solicitor and the police authorities, who eventually accepted my explanations, the former accompanied us to the newspaper offices. The chief of the staff seemed surprised when the solicitor introduced me.

"This is Mr. Ralph Lorimer to whom you referred to in a recently published paragraph," he said. "The other gentleman is his uncle, a British capitalist; and after he has given his version of the affair I have something to say. Will you state the main facts briefly, Mr. Lorimer?"

I did so, and the newspaper man—who, I think, was an American by birth—made notes.

Then, before the solicitor could intervene, Martin Lorimer, drawing down his bushy eyebrows, said, in the unaccented English he used when in a deliberately dangerous mood, "You have given out a false impression of an honest man's character. Now you're going to publish a true one, with a full apology, or we intend to make you suffer. There is law in Canada, I suppose; and if it costs me sufficient to buy up three papers, we'll carry the case on until we get our damages or smash you. Understand, I'm for liberty of the press, and in my young days I helped to fight for it; but this is libel; and I think you know my friend yonder."

"I guess I do," said the other. "One of the smartest lawyers in the West. Oh, yes, I know him! See here, we're not great on libel actions in this country. It's mighty hard to get damages for that; and we like our news tasty. No, all things considered, you would make nothing of it if you did sue me. Why,"—and he smiled on the old man, who looked as if he were eager to assault him—"lots of the boys would take that kind of paragraph as a compliment. It would tickle their vanity. We admit the raciness—we are proud of it; but we stand for fair play too. Would you mind telling me what you expect to do?"

"It doesn't appeal to my client," said the solicitor. "He has, as you would put it, British prejudices. I don't intend to display all our program, but it includes a visit to your rivals and the men who finance you. Still, though you sometimes lay the paint on too thick, I have hitherto found you well-informed and square; and we should rather you did the right thing of your own accord."

The man, I thought, looked honest, and with a shrewd smile he said, "Now you're talking the right talk. This paper casts its egis over the innocent. It's the friend of the oppressed, besides all the other good things set down in the New Year's article. But I shouldn't like those other fellows to get hold of that story before we've done with it. The citizens are interested, and we haven't your superstitious fear of commenting on cases sub judice. No, sir, we're afraid of nothing, and don't let British capitalists walk over us with nails in their boots. Now I'm going to make reparation and tell that tale in style, showing up all your client's fine qualities. Want to revise the item? You couldn't do it for ten thousand dollars. We're 'way beyond dictation, and pride ourselves on knowing how our readers like their news."

At a hint from the solicitor I contented myself with a more definite promise to do me justice. Then as we left the office, Martin Lorimer turned to the editor.

"Keep a hand on your imagination," he said grimly, "or you'll see me here again."

"Always glad to meet an interesting Britisher," the man of the pen answered with cheerfulness. "Come in peace, and we'll regale you on our special cigars; otherwise, my assistant will stand by with the politicians' club."

"And that's the creature who libeled us!" said Martin Lorimer when we reached the street. "I've a good mind to go back and show him whether I'm an interesting Britisher—confound him!" whereupon the lawyer laughed heartily.

"They're not all like him," he said. "This particular journal depends on its raciness, and he has to maintain the character. After all, he is an honest man, and he'll do you justice, though the item may contain specimens of what passes for local humor."

This was apparently the case, for when we read it together Martin Lorimer grew very red in the face, and at first I was divided between vexation and amusement. It ran as follows: "We have unwittingly cast suspicion on an innocent man, and for once an unprincipled informant has fooled us. The cattle-thief prosecutor has appeared, and will shortly present himself blushing before the public gaze. We have seen him, and can testify that instead of a Don Juan he is a Joseph, for there is an air of ingenuous innocence about him which makes it certain that he would crawl into a badger-hole if he met a pretty woman on the prairie. If further proof were wanted, he goes about in charge of a highly respectable British Croesus, one of the full-crusted elderly models of virtue they raise in Lancashire. The class is not obsolete. We have seen one."

Then, with whimsical directness, the following lines set forth the true state of the case, and I felt on the conclusion that the writer had not unskillfully reversed his previous unfavorable version. Martin Lorimer, however, signally failed to appreciate it, for the words obsolete and full-crusted stuck in his throat, and I had some difficulty in restraining him from returning forthwith to the newspaper offices. The journal eventually languished, and succumbed after some friction with the authorities when the editor left it to seek in the great republic a wider field for his talents, but before this happened he paid us several friendly visits at Fairmead.

The trial, which excited public interest at the time, took place shortly afterward. It transpired that there were other charges of fraud against the pair of thieves, whose case was hopeless from the beginning, but the prosecution experienced some difficulty in obtaining evidence to connect Fletcher definitely with them, though several facts suggested that he had for some time acted as a tool in their hands. The court was crammed, and looking down on the sea of faces I could recognize a number of my neighbors from the Fairmead district and Carrington, and was not overjoyed to see them. An attempt to steal a large draft of cattle was an important event on the prairie. I should not have testified at all, could this have been avoided, which, however, was not the case, and I awaited with much anxiety the cross-examination for the defense, because my solicitor had warned me that as more latitude was generally allowed than in England an attempt would be made to arouse popular sympathy on behalf of Fletcher and shake my evidence by casting doubts on my character.

"Have you any animus against the prisoner Fletcher?" was the first question.

"No," I answered. "Indeed, I was always anxious to befriend him until he robbed and slandered me."

"Or his wife?" added the inquisitor. "I think you knew her in England. Is it not true that you took her from the service of a railroad hotel and found a house for her on the prairie?"

There was a murmur in the court, and objection was taken to this question by the prosecution, but I was directed to answer it, so I said as coolly as I could: "I did know her in England. She was clerk in my uncle's mill, where Thomas Fletcher assisted the cashier. He was not married then. I took her from the service of the railroad hotel."

"It is a damaging admission," said my persecutor, and would have continued before I could finish the answer, but that there was a commotion below, which I hastened to profit by, adding, "But I brought her husband to meet her, and found him a situation in a creamery."

"It is true, every word of it!" a shrill voice rose up, and the murmuring grew louder in the body of the court, while it pleased me to see that the riders of Carrington vied with our humbler neighbors in this sign of approval. Then some one sternly called "Silence!" and the examination commenced again.

"I must protest against friends of the witness coming here to create a disturbance," said the barrister. "They are all owners of cattle, and accordingly filled with prejudice. This is a court of justice, and not a cow-boy's tribunal under the laws of Lynch."

"That is my province," interposed the judge, "and if the disturbance is repeated I shall know how to deal with it."

The barrister bowed as he rearranged his papers, and I felt murderously inclined toward him when, leaning on the rail in an impressive attitude, he continued: "I must next ask the witness whether Mrs. Fletcher did or did not visit him alone at his house, and remain for some time there? Also, when her husband most naturally came to inquire for her, whether he was not threatened with violence, and driven away at the muzzle of a loaded rifle? I want a direct answer. Yes or no."

The prosecution challenged the necessity for such a question, but after some verbal fencing between the lawyers and the judge it was allowed.

"In the first case I was not alone," I said, looking straight at my adversary. "In the second I was absent, and did not threaten him."

"He was to your knowledge threatened?"

"Yes."

"Do you know that shortly after leaving your house he was murderously assaulted as a result of his visit?"

"I believe that some one flung him into a muddy sloo, and I was not sorry to hear it."

"That is sufficient," said the examiner, with a significant smile toward the jury. "He was threatened with a loaded rifle for inquiring as to his wife's whereabouts; then murderously assaulted. Next you work up this charge against him. You may sit down."

I understood that the judge made some comments here, but I was too savage to hear clearly, and scarcely caught what followed next, until Jasper was placed on the witness stand, and stated that he had given no authority to any one except myself to sell the cattle, which he swore to, with other details which were not particularly interesting. There was no doubt that Fletcher was at least obstinately defended, for the lawyer once more strove skillfully to twist out answers confirming the theory that his client had no direct connection with the affair, and sought to show on my part a deliberate intention to ruin him. He may even have believed the romantic story, which was particularly calculated to appeal to a Western jury.

Jasper's replies did not, however, help him much, for when, returning to the subject, he asked, "Did you not on several occasions drive the witness Lorimer over to Fletcher's dwelling with presents for his wife?" Jasper answered boldly, "I did, and I guess Mrs. Fletcher would have gone hungry if we hadn't. Fletcher's a low-grade wastrel, and anyway he ate most of them presents. Yes, sir; they were fowls and potatoes, and Lorimer never went over but Fletcher was there."

There was a great laugh from the riders of Carrington, and the defendant's lawyer frowned.

"Are you a friend of the witness Lorimer?"

"I hope so," Jasper answered simply. "If ever I meet you on the prairie I'll endeavor to convince you."

"Were you a friend of Thomas Fletcher's?"

The answer was emphatic. "No. I guess the sight of the insect makes me sick."

Again the lawyer smiled toward the jury, and the judge, censuring the witness, directed him to refrain from unnecessary details. The next question came:

"Was it because you were a friend of Lorimer's, or had such a bitter dislike to Fletcher, that one night you attempted to murder him? Let me remind you that Fletcher, as has been admitted, came to bring back his wife from Fairmead, and was threatened with a rifle there. Then you rode after him, and overtook him on the prairie where it was lonely."

"It was for neither reason," Jasper answered, straightening his burly form as he glared at his adversary. "A young girl bluffed off Fletcher and the other ruffian there, the prisoner Gorst. She was alone, but she scared the pair of them with an empty rifle. Suppose you left your sister alone, and came back to find a half-drunk hobo trying to murder her?"

The lawyer, I fancied, had now heard rather more than he knew before, and it struck me that the prisoner's cunning had overreached itself in not posting him better, for he glanced at his papers before continuing:

"Did you make a violent attack upon him?"

"I did," said Jasper, cheerfully. "Oh, yes, and I'm coming to it in my own way. I rode right after him, took Fletcher out of the wagon, asked the other man if he felt inclined to assist him, and, when he didn't, laid into Fletcher with the whip and just hove him into the sloo. Why did I do it?—it's a poor conundrum. For the credit of the prairie. We've no room for woman-beaters, cattle thieves, slanderers, and dishonest lawyers down to our district. Bring along more questions—you hear me; I've lots more to say."

The judge cut short his eloquence, but he had said enough, and there was wild approval from the prairie contingent, in which some of the citizens joined, and through it Jasper towered before the assembly, a stalwart figure, shaking a great fist and ejaculating something in the direction of his annoyer. The tumult was quelled with difficulty, and an official told me that never before had he seen so much excitement shown. It was due, he added, to the presence of those mad young riders of Carrington. I sat down breathing more easily, for I felt that as yet my honor was clear, and whether Fletcher escaped or not was of minor importance. From the beginning the main efforts of the other side had been directed toward saving him, while as the case proceeded I listened with decreasing interest, until at last the prosecutor said:

"My opponent has done his utmost, even overstepping limits, to prove that the witness Lorimer has ended a long course of injury by supporting a false charge against the prisoner Fletcher. This is after all a side issue, but I think the jury will agree that he has furnished most reliable testimony, and that the prisoner mentioned took an unprincipled advantage of his perfectly well-intentioned kindness."

There was considerably more which did not affect me, and another speech, though I woke to eager interest again when the judge, in making his final comments, said:

"As regards the witness Lorimer, I entirely agree with the view taken by the prosecution. He has evidently suffered by well-meant efforts to aid the prisoner, and, though that is not connected with the case except in so far as it covers the reliability of his testimony, he has been shown to be an individual of unblemished character. We can accordingly accept his evidence."

Again there was applause, which the judge checked severely, and proceeded: "You will notice that, while the prisoner Fletcher's record does not seem to be a creditable one, the evidence fails in some degree to connect him with the other two prisoners as an active participator in the robbery. I refer to—" and so on.

The jury retired for a considerable time, and when the foreman reappeared he announced that they found two of the prisoners guilty, and Thomas Fletcher not guilty, the latter in a very doubtful tone. He also appeared desirous of adding some explanation, which was not permitted; while, as the court broke up, I noticed the detective watching Fletcher much as a cat watches a momentarily liberated mouse. Then I was surrounded by the men from the prairie, who insisted on escorting us to our hotel, and when I asked for Jasper somebody said he had seen him loitering beside one of the court-house doors. We found him partly hidden by a wagon, watching it intently.

"Are you getting up another speech, or trying to freeze there?" one of the Carrington party asked.

"No! I guess I'm laying for that lawyer. Couldn't get at him inside there for a barrier. Am I a low-grade perjurer—and my friend what he was working round to show? If you'll stand by for just two minutes I'll convince the insect—the blamed, vermilion, mosquito!"

"You're too late," said the man from Carrington. "He went out the other way some time ago. Mr. Lorimer, one or two of us were at first—appearances were strongly against you, you know—inclined to doubt you, and we feel considerably ashamed of ourselves. We want you and your worthy uncle to join us at dinner. Got together the best company we could to meet you."

It was honestly said, and we accepted with willingness, while I think my worthy uncle enjoyed himself even more than I did. He was a jealous insular Briton, and the sight of those sturdy handsome young Englishmen who well maintained the credit of the old land in the new delighted him. The appreciation seemed to be mutual. He complained of a headache the next morning; but that dinner had conferred on the Radical cotton-spinner the freedom of aristocratic Carrington, and an indefinite but valuable intimation that the colony had set its special endorsement upon his nephew.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE ROAD TO DAKOTA

Martin Lorimer returned to Vancouver promptly, for he found the prairie cold trying, and by-and-by I received a letter from Harry still reporting profitable work, in which he said: "Your uncle seems to have developed a craze for real estate. Buying land on a rising town boom is a somewhat risky amusement, especially if, as they express it here, the bottom drops out of the boom; but I suppose he can afford it, and he has been trailing around lately with two surveyors behind him. Laid hands on the timber lots about the Day Spring, which is sending up very low-grade, ore. Perhaps you know, though he won't tell any one, why he is doing it."

I showed the letter to Aline, and she looked remarkably wise; then, putting her head on one side, she nodded twice.

"I've a great respect for Uncle Martin's sagacity," she said. "He's planning something for the benefit of Colonel Carrington, and I've a faint inkling of what it may be. But don't worry me with questions. He won't show a single person what he means to do until he is ready."

I had no ideas at all on the subject, though I did not tell Aline so. For her age she was rather too vain of her superior perception, and it struck me as becoming that a younger sister should look up to her brother. I was proud of Aline, but she had her failings.

It was not long afterward, when returning from Jasper's at night, I found the remains of a meal on the table, and my sister waiting with news for me.

"I'm glad you didn't come home earlier, Ralph," she said. "I am quite ashamed of my inconsistency. It's nice to think oneself inflexible, isn't it? And then it's humiliating to resolve on a certain course and do the opposite."

She paused, either to excite my curiosity or to afford an opportunity for considering the sentiment.

"Never mind all that. Come to the point, Aline," I said. But she stirred the stove, and dusted some plates that did not require it, before she continued:

"I had made up my mind to hate Mrs. Fletcher forever, and, do you know, I let her kiss me scarcely half an hour ago."

"Minnie here again! Oh, confound her!" I said, banging back my chair.

"It's wicked to lose your temper, Ralph," Aline answered sweetly, "and very unbecoming in an elder brother. It isn't poor Minnie's fault that her husband is what you call a bad egg, is it? Yes, she came here in a sleigh with two tired horses, and one was lame. She was going to meet her husband somewhere. He has become a teetotaler, and promises to turn out quite a virtuous character. She hinted at something which I didn't know about that happened at the trial—it was too bad of you to burn those papers—and said he was going to Dakota, across the border. She was almost frozen, had only fall clothes on, and she was very hungry. It wouldn't have been right to let her face an all-night drive in Arctic weather like that, and she put the horses into the stable, while I lent her all my wrappings, gave her food to take, and made her rest and eat. She said she felt she must call and tell me how very sorry she was. Then she cried on my head, and I let her kiss me. We should always be forgiving, Ralph, shouldn't we?"

"Tom Fletcher reformed!" I said astonished. "Oh, how foolish you women are! I've only met one who is always sensible;" and then an idea struck me, and I added quickly: "Are you quite sure Fletcher wasn't in the sleigh?"

"No, Fletcher wasn't there—at least, I'd had neuralgia, so I only looked out of the window. Minnie put up the horses."

Then I flung open a cupboard door, and what I saw confirmed a growing suspicion. For legal reasons whisky is scarce on portions of the prairie, but a timely dose of alcohol has saved many a man's life in the Canadian frost, and we always kept some spirits in case of emergency.

"Then Minnie is not a teetotaler," I said. "A bottle of whisky has gone."

Leaving Aline to consider this, I ran to the stable, and found that one of the splendid horses poor Ormond had bequeathed me was also gone. In its place stood a sorry beast, evidently dead lame, and it did not need the scrap of paper pinned to the manger to explain the visit.

"I am running a heavy risk, and you won't betray me," the pencil scrawl read. "Tetley of Coulee Rouge will send back the horse and robes. It is a last favor; we won't trouble you any more.—Minnie Fletcher."

I was troubled, however. We should need every available beast in the spring, and Tetley was rather more than suspected of being concerned in smuggling whisky and certain contraband commerce, including the shipping of Chinamen over the United States border. It seemed like tempting Providence to leave a horse of that kind in his hands, and yet Coulee Rouge was twenty long miles away. I was also considerably puzzled as to why Minnie should have interfered to save her husband, for it was evident some fresh charge had been brought against him, and he was seeking safety in the republic. Extradition existed, but except in murder cases it was not often that a fugitive who had once crossed the boundary was ever brought back. It seemed impossible that she had not read the reports in the papers, and the charge Fletcher brought against her was a hard one to forgive. Still, papers were not plentiful on the prairie, and the people she lived with might out of kindness have concealed part of the news from her. However that might be, I determined to save the horse, and explained this to Aline, with a brotherly warning not to allow emotion to get the better of her judgment in future. She listened with a docility that promised future reprisals, and then, agreeing that it would be well to secure the horse, said that she should not mind being left alone. Indeed, unless something very unexpected happened, she would be as safe alone at Fairmead as in any town.

So I saddled the next best horse, donned my warmest skin coat, and started for a cold ride across the prairie. The snow was thin and fairly hard—it seldom lies deep about Fairmead; but in view of the return journey I did not urge the horse, and our sleigh had lost a runner. So when perhaps half the distance had been traversed a beat of hoofs grew louder behind me, and four horsemen, riding hard, came up. By the jingle of accouterments I knew they were the wardens of the prairie, and half expected what was to follow.

"Hold up!" the sharp summons came, while I recognized my old acquaintance, Sergeant Angus, as the speaker. "Lorimer o' Fairmead—good night to ye. Have ye seen a two-horse sleigh? We've news of it passing Green Hollow, south-bound, four hours ago!"

"Whom are you wanting?" I asked.

"Thomas Fletcher," the sergeant answered. "One of his late partners gave him away, and there's a warrant for him. They wired us on to watch the stations, and a message came from Elktail that he'd been seen heading south in a sleigh. He's no friend o' yours; have ye met that sleigh, and where are ye riding at this unholy hour?"

"No," I said, "I haven't seen the sleigh; but a woman drove up to Fairmead, where my sister was alone, and borrowed my best horse. There are some business friends of yours on the trail to Dakota, and I'm going south in case they took a fancy to it."

"Ye're wise," said Sergeant Angus. "A woman, are ye sure?"

"My sister was sure, and she ought to know."

"I'm not quite understanding this," he said, "but meantime Thomas Fletcher is skipping for the boundary. Ride ye, boys, ride!"

I was thankful for the diversion, for I could not see my way clearly, and as we pressed on there was small opportunity for awkward questions. I wanted the horse and meant to get it, but that would have contented me, and I had no desire to assist in the capture of Fletcher. Another hour passed, and then far away on the edge of the white circle, which was lighted by the rays of a sinking moon, I saw a moving speck, and one of the troopers shouted. Thereupon the spurs went in, and when my beast shot forward I knew that the police horses were tired, and I could readily leave them behind. Still, I was not an officer of the law, and reflecting that my presence or absence would in no way affect the fugitives' chance of escape, while after recent events it was well to be careful, I held him in.

We were gaining, however, for the distant object developed into a sleigh; but the moon was sinking fast, and the dark line on the horizon, with a fretted edge, betokened the birches fringing Coulee Rouge, where the party before us might well escape.

"Ride ye, boys!" cried the sergeant; but the beasts were weary and the blundering gallop was a poor one, while I kept a firm hand on the good horse's rein, holding him behind the others and out of sight, lest Sergeant Angus should demand an exchange in the Queen's name. This was not easy, for Ormond had hunted coyotes on him with a very scratch pack of hounds, while one of the troopers kept dropping back toward me, and the beast seemed under the impression that I was wilfully throwing away my chance in the race. Meanwhile, the sleigh grew more and more visible, though I did not doubt that its occupants were doing their utmost to gain the shelter of the birches in the dark coulee, and that my other horse was suffering at their hands accordingly. Then there was a growl from the sergeant as the sleigh was lost on the edge of the fringe of trees, and presently we rode panting and more slowly beneath them, to the brink of the coulee, with the steam from the horses rising in white clouds about us. It was, of course, particularly steep, and as the moonlight only filtered through the matted branches dark shadow for the most part veiled the treacherous descent, which the troopers accomplished with many a stumble. They were excellent horsemen, but there is a limit to equine endurance, and their beasts had nearly reached it. Presently, as we neared the very rude log bridge which spanned the inevitable creek, the last silvery patch of radiance faded, and thick darkness filled the ravine.

"Halt!" said the sergeant. "Confusion! It's pit dark!" and drawing rein we sat still a few moments, listening intently, but we heard only the branches moaning under the bitter breeze.

"There are two trails," said Sergeant Angus. "Yon one up the other side leads south away for Dakota; this follows the coulee to Jake Tetley's. Tom, ye're proud o' your tracking, ride on to Tetley's, an', for Jake's good at lyin', look well for the scrape o' runners if he swears he has not seen them. Finding nothing, if ye strike southeast over the rises, ye'll head us off on the Dakota trail. I'm thinking they're hurrying that way for the border, and we'll wait for ye by the Blackfoot ridge."

He rubbed a fizzing sulphur match into sickly flame; but, as the banks were steep, and that bridge formed a favorite crossing, the snow showed the recent passage of many runners, and there was nothing to be learned from them. The wood was thicker than usual, and from what we could see there was no way a sleigh could traverse it quickly except by the two trails. So the trooper departed for Tetley's dwelling, which lay some distance up the coulee, while we breasted the opposite slope and proceeded more slowly through the darkness across the plain. Half an hour later we waited a while on the crest of one of the gradual rises which are common thereabout, until presently a hail answered the sergeant's cry, and the trooper rejoined us.

"They've not been near Tetley's," he said. "Must have pushed on straight ahead of us. I made him bring a lantern, and prospected down the trail, but nothing on four legs has come up it for a week at least."

"Where do you think they have gone?" I asked, and the sergeant answered wearily:

"The deil knows, but it will be south. Weel, we have our orders, an' their cattle are failing, while even if we miss them we'll strike their trail by daylight."

"I hope you will," I answered. "I'm anxious about my horse, but I can't go any further to-night. He's a big chestnut, branded small O inside the Carrington C. You'll be careful with him, won't you?"

"On with ye, boys," said the sergeant. "A fair passage home, Mr. Lorimer; I'm envying ye a warm seat by the stove to-night," and the mounted figures disappeared into the gloom, while more leisurely I headed back toward the coulee. Orders were orders with the Northwest Police, and though they had ridden under Arctic cold most of the day they must also spend the night in the saddle if the horses could keep their footing much longer, which, however, seemed doubtful. The search might last several days, and I could not leave Aline so long, while a Brandon man of business had arranged to call on me the next afternoon, and I knew that if the troopers came upon it the horse would be in good hands. Still, the police at least were strong men, and I rather pitied Minnie Fletcher slowly freezing in the bitter darkness under Aline's furs. I was glad now that she had lent them to her. Minnie evidently had not expected that the troopers, being warned by telegraph, would take up the trail so soon.

Then for the first time I recollected that Tetley had been cutting building logs on a more level strip half-way up the side of the ravine, and had cleared a jumper trail toward it. The sergeant certainly did not know this, and it struck me that while his party searched the two forking trails Fletcher's sleigh might well have lain hidden in the blind one, and I turned the horse's head toward Tetley's dwelling. When I neared it my suspicions were confirmed, for a rough voice hailed me from under the trees:

"What are you wanting, stranger? Stop there!"

"I want Jim Tetley," I answered.

"He's way down to Dakota, and you can't see him," the unseen person said.

To this I replied at a venture: "I'm too cold for unnecessary fooling. Jim Tetley is inside there. Go right in, and tell him that Lorimer of Fairmead is waiting for his horse. He'll understand that message."

"Now you're talking," said the man showing himself. "Stay where you are until I come back." And when he returned, he said: "You can have it on the promise you'll tell no one what you see. It's not healthy to break one's bargain, either, with Jim Tetley, while living in a wooden house with a straw-pile granary."

"I'm a friend of Mrs. Fletcher, and I'm in a hurry," I answered boldly, and when he ushered me into the dwelling I saw what I had expected. Minnie lay back limp and colorless in a big chair by the stove. Fletcher knelt close beside her chafing her wrists, and the table was littered with wrappings, while Tetley frowned at me from one end of the room.

"Fletcher," I said. "You and your advocate worked up a lying charge against me. Shall I ask your wife before you whether it's true? Do you know that in half an hour I could bring the police on you?"

"I guess you won't," said Tetley, laying his hand significantly on the rifle behind him; while Fletcher answered sullenly, "You needn't. I know now it isn't true. But I was mad, and believed it at first, and afterward it was either that or five years. There were other counts against me; and what could a poor man do?"

Minnie looked at him with disgust, and shivered as she snatched one of her hands from his grasp. "It was very good of your sister, Ralph," she said, "and I knew you would forgive me for borrowing the horse; he is there in the stable, and Tetley will find Tom another. It was an awful journey, even before we reached Fairmead, where I hid him in the bottom of the sleigh; and they brought me in here almost frozen stiff."

"I thought she was gone, poor thing!" said Mrs. Tetley, who was cooking something on the stove; and her husband broke in: "She looked like it. Cuss them police! But we euchred them. A young trooper rides up to the door and drives me round prospecting with a lantern. Of course, he found nothing, and when he rode off I began to tumble. Found your friends in the log-trail and brought them in, knowing them blame troopers wouldn't come back again. Sergeant Angus is a smart man, but he doesn't know everything, and I'll see Fletcher and his missis safe in the hands of a friend who will slip them over the border."

"I'm not going," said Minnie. "Ralph—and you all can listen—my husband came to me desperate and hopeless in fear of the law. Oh, it's no secret, all the prairie knows that he used me scandalously—but he was my husband—and I could not give him up. So I took the few dollars I had and hired the sleigh, and when the horse fell dead lame we came to Fairmead. I knew, though we had wronged you, I could trust you. Now he's in safe hands; I'm going no further with him. There are some things one cannot forget. I shall tell the story to the people who employed me; they are kind-hearted folk, but it doesn't matter if they give me up. I'm sick of this life, and nothing matters now."

She broke out half-sobbing, half-laughing wildly, and though Fletcher growled something sullenly, hanging his head with the air of a whipped hound, I fancied that he seemed relieved at this decision, and was slightly surprised to see he had even the decency to appear ashamed of himself. Then, knowing that the people she worked for would do their best for Minnie, I determined to write to them, and I asked Tetley to bring out the horse.

"Can't I give you a shakedown in the stable until morning?" he said. "The missis will look after Mrs. Fletcher, and see she gets back safe," and he added so that the others could not hear him, "Fletcher's meaner than poison, and I'd let the troopers have him and welcome, only for the sake of the woman, and because he knows enough about some friends of mine to make things lively if he talked."

Tetley was of course a rascal, but there was a certain warped honesty in his dealings with brother rogues—at least so rumor said—and I knew if he had given his promise he could be trusted, while a few of his perfectly honest neighbors were sorry when not long afterward Sergeant Angus proved too sharp for him.

"No, thanks," I answered. "My horse would be worth a great deal in Dakota, and I'll clear out while I'm sure of him."

"Good-bye, Ralph," said Minnie, when I donned the fur cap and mittens. "I don't suppose I shall ever see you again—no, of course you won't be sorry; but you and Jasper were the only two who ever showed me kindness in this hard, hard country. I wish, oh, how I wish I had never seen it! Tell my father to forget me, the sooner the better. I have chosen my own way, and must follow it. It's leading me to prison now."

She appeared about to relapse into hysterics, and knowing that I could not help her at the moment, and might only make matters worse, I stopped Fletcher with a threatening gesture as he prepared to address me, and hurried out with Tetley, who showed me the horse.

"You'll strike Cranton's heading, due east by the chain sloos, in a league," he said. "He deals with us sometimes, and you needn't fear his talking. Don't trouble about Mrs. Fletcher. She's all right."

I rode out leading one of the horses, and in due time reached Cranton's, though I nearly beat the door in before I roused him, and I left him the next morning with his curiosity unsatisfied. That was the last I ever saw of Thomas Fletcher. Neither did Sergeant Angus find his trail, for Tetley knew every foot of the prairie, and enjoyed the reputation of being unequaled in his own somewhat mysterious business, which I understood demanded a high proficiency in evading the watchfulness of the police.



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE RECALL OF ADAM LEE

When I returned to Fairmead I wrote two letters. One was to Minnie's employer, who kept a flourishing implement store further down the line, to which he had lately added a somewhat primitive hotel, in whose management I understood Minnie assisted. He was an enterprising, good-natured Manitoban, and everybody spoke well of his wife, so, having had dealings with him, I requested an interview.

In the other I told Harry all that had passed, asking him to transmit as much as he thought proper to Lee, and then awaited developments. The first result was a note from storekeeper Moran saying that as he was looking up orders for implements he would call on me, which he did presently, and proceeded to discuss the matter with frankness.

"My wife has taken a fancy to Mrs. Fletcher," he said. "We just call her Minnie because there's no particular reason to handicap her with her husband's name. She's a mighty smart honest woman, and we knew that story about you was a lie from the beginning—did our best to keep it from her, but I think she knew. We were startled some when she lit out with the sleigh, but she came back half-dead, and we asked no questions until she told us. She's been sick and fretful since, but I guess there's nothing you can do. When we can't keep a sick woman who has done good work for us a while we'll give up the business. She'll be pert again directly."

"You are a very kind man," said Aline, glancing at him critically.

"Thank you, miss," Moran answered. "You just make your mind easy about Mrs. Fletcher; and now, Lorimer, we'll talk business. You'll want a new binder if you're putting in much of a crop, and I've got the latest machines coming in from Toronto."

Aline burst into a hearty laugh, in which I joined her, for the speech was characteristic of the native prairie inhabitants' character. Frugal, but open-handed, hard to beat at a bargain, they are equally swift to seize upon all chances that lead to business and do the stranger an unostentatious kindness, though they have no false delicacy in forthwith establishing commercial relations with the man they benefit.

"Don't see any joke!" said Moran. "You want a binder. I've seen the old one, and I've got lots to sell. Of course we'll look after Mrs. Fletcher, but that's no reason I should miss a deal."

The result was that I ordered an expensive binder which I had hoped to do without, and presently Moran departed with the order in his pocket.

"I think he was very sensible," said Aline, "and you know you said the old machine would hardly have lasted."

Harry answered promptly, and said he expected I should see Lee very soon. He had been restless ever since he heard of Fletcher's blacksliding, and had, among other things, embarked upon two unpopular crusades. He even seemed disappointed, Harry added, because there was so little drunkenness and loose living for him to grapple with.

"That is so like a man," said Aline when she read the letter. "Where is your boasted consistency? He ought to be thankful. But you have missed the postscript about Uncle Martin. This is what Harry says: 'I met him in long boots one day when I went up to see Calvert, trailing a survey chain not far from the Day Spring mine, and when I asked him what he was doing it for, and whether snow-slush was good for lumbago, he smiled and answered in the silver tongue of your native country something I failed to comprehend. For a respectable cotton-spinner, as I told him, he has developed curious ways.'

"You will see by-and-by, and so will that arrogant Colonel," said Aline. "He has offended him bitterly, and I shouldn't like to be an enemy of Uncle Martin's."

There was an interlude of quietness, and then, when at last the winter showed signs of relaxing its iron grip, and the snow grew soft at noon, events commenced to follow fast upon one another. Jasper drove up from the railroad one afternoon bringing Lee with him, and then departed with, I thought, undue precipitancy, leaving myself and the old man alone, for I had increased the accommodation at Fairmead, and Aline discreetly withdrew. He had of course read the papers, though not until some time after the trial, and was good enough to say he never doubted my innocence. Still, I had to repeat all the unpleasant details, until at last Aline returned to prepare supper.

Then he sighed as he said: "It's a bad business, but I feared from the start this would be the end of it. And now I'm going to tell thee something. I've served thee and thy partner as well as I could, and I've saved some money doing it. It's a gradely life up yonder, in spite of the snow and cold—ay, I would ask no better than to end my days there, but it's over easy and peaceful in a world that's brimming with misery, and I've been feeling like Jonah when he fled with his message."

Aline smiled at me over her shoulder, and I stared at him in amaze, saying, "I never found it either particularly easy or peaceful. I don't quite understand you."

"No," said Lee, changing in a moment to his old pedantic style I had almost forgotten. "Thou hast not the message; it's thy work to till the soil, and I had thought to bide in this good land helping thee until my time came. But a voice kept on saying, 'Go back to them hopeless poor and drunkards thou left in Lancashire.' I would not listen. The devil whispered I was worn out and done, but when I talked with Harry, he, not having understanding, said: 'You're looking younger every day. If I heard those kind of things I should say it was liver.'"

Aline no longer smiled, but sat watching him and listening gravely, and I began to catch a glimmer of his meaning.

"The folks at chapel had not forgotten me," continued Lee, "and they were in trouble. There was another man took up the work I left, but he went off with t' brass they'd gathered for a new gallery, and they wrote they'd see I got back the old shop if I come home again. And because I was weak and fearful o' the grinding struggle over there, I did not go. They wrote another letter, but still I bided, until I read this paper."

He spread out a soiled English journal, and, running a crooked finger across it, read out the headings, with extracts, at some of which, remembering Aline's presence, I frowned. It was only a plain record of what happens in the crowded cities of the older land—a murder, two suicides, and the inevitable destitution and drunkenness, but he looked up with kindling eyes.

"I could not shut my ears. The call was, 'come an' help us,' an' I'm going. Going back out of the sunshine into the slums o' Lancashire."

This, I reflected, was the man who had once attempted my life—ignorant, intolerant, and filled with prejudice, but at least faithful to the light within him; and I knew that even if he failed signally, the aim he set before himself was a great one. No suitable answer, however, suggested itself, and I was thankful when Aline said, "It is a very fine thing to do. But what about your daughter?"

"Her place was by her husband," said Lee; "but her husband left her. Minnie is going back with me. Your brother will take me to see her to-morrow."

I did so, at the risk of overtaxing the horses by a trying journey through softening snow; but I sent a telegram to Minnie, and when we left the cars she was there to meet us, looking weak and ill, with shadows in the hollows round her eyes.

"It was very good of you to come, father," she said. "I was an undutiful daughter, and I suffered for it. Now I have broken the law, and the police troopers could take me to prison. But I am tired of it all, father, and if you will have me I am going home with you."

"Thou'rt my own lass," said Lee; and I found something required my presence elsewhere, for Minnie was shaken by emotion as she clung to him. And yet this tearful woman had outwitted the tireless wardens of the prairie, and, in spite of the law's vigilance and deadly cold, smuggled her faithless husband safe across the border.

We stayed at Moran's Hotel that night, and Mrs. Moran acted with unusual good-nature, in the circumstances, for she not only suffered Minnie to leave her at the commencement of the busy season, but bestowed many small presents upon her, and it was with difficulty that I avoided giving her husband an order for sufficient implements to till the whole of the Fairmead district.

"Now that you're here you had better make sure of a bargain while you have a chance," he said. "Say, as a matter of friendship I'll put them in at five per cent. under your best offer from Winnipeg."

Though I wished them both good fortune, satisfaction was largely mingled with my regret when the next day I stood in the little station looking after the train which bore Lee and his daughter back to his self-imposed task in smoky Stoney Clough. Neither of them ever crossed my path again; but still Harry and I discuss the old man's doings, and Aline says that there was a trace of the hero hidden under his most unheroic exterior.

Not long after this Calvert called on us, and spent two days at Fairmead before he went east again. He explained his visit as follows: "The Day Spring will have to get on as best it can without my services. The fact is, I can't stand its owner any longer. I was never very fond of him—no one is, but I liked poor Ormond, and stayed for his sake. So, informing the Colonel that he could henceforward run the mine himself, I pulled out hoping to get a railroad appointment in Winnipeg. By the way, there is trouble brewing between him and your uncle."

Aline nodded toward me meaningly, and Calvert continued:

"Our tunnel leads out beside one boundary of the Day Spring claim. I must explain that of late we found signs that, in spite of a fault, the best of the reef stretched under adjoining soil, and it was only owing to disagreements with his men, and my refusal, that the Colonel neglected to jump the record of a poor fellow who couldn't put in the legal improvements. He had intended to do so; while I believe the miner, who fell sick, told your uncle. This will make clear a good deal; you should remember it. Well, to work our adit we had to make an ore and dirt dump on adjacent land; and we'd hardly started it than two men began felling timber right across our skidway, until, speaking as if he commanded the universe, the Colonel ordered them off. They didn't go, however; and I really thought he would have a fit when one of them said with a grin, 'Light out of this, and be quick. Don't you know you're trespassing?'

"Colonel Carrington turned his back on them, and bade us run out the trolley along the wooden way; and I did so, against my judgment, for one of the men looked ugly, and my master wasn't exactly a favorite. The other fellow was busy with the axe, and when he gave me a warning to get out I proceeded to act upon it—which was fortunate, for a big hemlock came down on the trolley, and all that was left of it wasn't worth picking up. Colonel Carrington doesn't usually give himself away, but he swore vividly, and I went with him the next day into the timber city. It's getting a big place already. He stalked into the land agent's office with a patronizing air, and then said with his usual frigidity:

"'Who owns the timber lots about the Day Spring? I'm going to buy them.'

"'You can't do it,' said the agent. 'My client won't sell, and wants to give you warning that he doesn't like trespassing.'

"'That means he wants a big price,' said the Colonel, looking at the map. 'What's his figure?'

"And the agent grinned as he answered, 'For the piece you require for the ore-dump, ten thousand dollars.'

"'He is mad,' said the Colonel, 'perfectly stark mad. Tell him I shall dump my refuse on it, if I have to finance somebody to locate a mineral claim. What is the name of this lunatic?'

"'Martin Lorimer,' said the agent. 'The crown in that case gives you the minerals; but before you put a pick into the ground you must meet all demands for compensation—and they'll be mighty heavy ones. My client is also prepared to collect them by the best legal assistance that money can buy, and I guess you've given him a useful hint.'

"My respected chief just walked out; but I think he was troubled at the name," said Calvert. "And after that there was some fresh difficulty every week, while his temper, which was never a good one, got perfectly awful, until I came away. He'll go off in a fit of apoplexy or paralytic seizure when his passion breaks loose some day."

Calvert furnished other particulars before he resumed his eastward journey, leaving me with much to ponder. An actively worked mine is a public benefit, and its owners usually have free access and privilege upon the adjacent soil; but I knew that in such matters as cutting timber, water, and ore and refuse heaps a hostile neighbor could harass them considerably. "Uncle Martin is going to enjoy himself," said Aline, when I told her so.

It was some weeks later when Harry and his assistants came home, bringing with him a heavy bank draft and a wallet stuffed with dollar bills. He looked more handsome and winning than ever when he greeted Aline, and—though it needed some experience of her ways to come to this conclusion—I could tell that she regarded him with approval. He had finished the railroad work, and when he had furnished full details about it, he showed that he had thoughtfully considered other matters, for he said:

"Ralph, I guessed you would be busy altering Fairmead on opportunity, and now that your sister has turned it into a palace I should always be afraid of spoiling something; so I have arranged by mail to camp with Hudson, of the next preemption. His place is scarcely a mile away. Miss Lorimer, you don't realize the joys of living as a bachelor, or you would freely forgive me."

"I think I do," said Aline. "Half-cooked food on plates that have not been washed for weeks and weeks, and a house like a pig-stye. Have I not seen my brother reveling in them? Mr. Harry Lorraine, from what Ralph has told me, there is no one I should more gladly welcome to Fairmead than its part-owner, and I am surprised that he should prefer the pig-stye. Still, in reference to the latter, is there not a warning about blindly casting?"

"There is," laughed Harry. "I crave mercy. In token of submission I will help you to wash those dishes now." And, being perfectly satisfied to be for once relieved of the duty, I lounged in the ox-hide chair watching them through the blue tobacco smoke, and noting what a well-matched couple they were. An hour had sufficed to make them good friends; and I was quite aware that Harry had entered into the arrangement merely for our own sake, Hudson, as everybody knew, being neither an over-cleanly nor companionable person.

When the last plate had been duly polished and placed in the rack that Aline had insisted on my making, Harry spread out a bundle of papers.

"Now we will settle down to discuss the spring campaign, if your sister will excuse us," he said.

"Aline is already longing to show me how to run a farm. Go on, and beware how you lay any weak points open to her criticism," I answered.

"In the first place, there is the inevitable decision to make between two courses," said Harry; "the little-venture-little-win method or the running of heavy risks for a heavy prize. Personally I favor the latter, which we have adopted before, and, which I think you have already decided on."

"I have," I said.

"Then we will take it as settled that we put every possible acre under crop this spring, hiring assistance largely, which, based on your own figures, should leave us this balance. It's a pity to work poor Ormond's splendid beasts at the plough, but of course you wouldn't like to sell them, and they must earn their keep. The next question is the disposal of the balance."

"I would not sell them for any price," I said. "My idea is to invest all the balance—except enough to purchase seed and feed us during winter if the crop fails—in cattle, buying a new mower, and hiring again to cut hay. It's locked-up money, but the profit should provide a handsome interest, and there's talk of a new creamery at Carrington, which promises a good market for milk. This brings us back to the old familiar position. We shall be prosperous men if all goes well, with just enough to pay our debts if it doesn't."

"I look for the former," said Harry. "But with your permission we'll deduct this much for a building fund—half to be employed at the discretion of either. You will want to further extend this dwelling, and I may buy Hudson's place under mortgage. It would be well-sunk money, for at the worst we could get it back if we sold the property. You agree? Then the whole affair is settled, and it only remains for Miss Lorimer to wish us prosperity."

"You are a very considerate partner, Mr. Lorraine, and if I were a wheat-grower I should be proud to trust you. May all and every success attend your efforts. Now put up those papers, and tell me about British Columbia."

It was very late when Harry walked back to Hudson's, while I did not sleep all night, thinking over the tremendous difference that success or failure would make to myself and Grace.



CHAPTER XXIX

CONCERNING THE DAY SPRING MINE

It was a perfect day when we commenced the ploughing, and we hailed it as a favorable augury that cloudless sunshine flooded the steaming prairie. Glittering snow still filled the hollows here and there, but already the flowers lifted their buds above the whitened sod, and the air vibrated to the beat of tired wings as the wild fowl returned like heralds of summer on their northward journey. We had three hired men to help us, in addition to the teams driven by myself and Harry; but, and this was his own fancy, it was Aline who commenced the work.

"You will remember our hopes and fears the day we first put in the share. Many things have happened since," he said, "but once more the harvest means a great deal to both of us. Miss Lorimer—and we are now more fortunate, Ralph, than we were then—you will imagine yourself an ancient priestess, and bless the soil for us. That always struck me as an appropriate custom."

The wind had freshened the roses in Aline's cheeks, and her eyes sparkled as she patted the brawny oxen. Then she grasped the plough-stilts, and, calling to the beasts, Harry strode beside her, with his brown hand laid close beside her white one. Theirs was the better furrow, for, tramping behind my own team not far away, I could hardly keep my eyes off the pair. Both had grown very dear to me, and they were worth the watching—the handsome strong man, and the eager bright-faced girl, whose merry laugh mingled with the soft sound of clods parting beneath the share. They stopped at the end of the furrow, and I wondered when Aline said with strange gentleness: "God bless the good soil, and give the seed increase, that we may use the same for Thy glory, the relief of those that are needy, and our own comfort."

"Amen!" said Harry, bending his uncovered head, as, a sinewy, graceful figure in dusty canvas, with the white sod behind him, he helped her across a raw strip of steaming clod, while neither of us spoke again until we had completed another furrow. It was a glorious spring, and not for long years had there been such a seed time, the men who helped us said, while my hopes rose with every fresh acre we drilled with the good grain. I was sowing the best that was within me as well as the best hard wheat, and it seemed that the rest of my life depended on the result of it. There is no need to tell how we labored among the black clods of the breaking, or the dust that followed the harrows, under the cool of morning or the mid-day sun, for we were young and strong, fighting for our own hand, with a great reward before at least one of us. Still, at times I remembered Lee, who was in his own way fighting a harder battle against drunkenness and misery, the reward of which was only hardship and poverty. Once I said so to Aline, and she answered me: "It was his vocation; he could not help it. Yours, and I do not think you could help it either—you would have made a remarkably poor preacher, Ralph—is to break new wheat-lands out of the wilderness; for, you will remember—well, I'm not a preacher either, but not wholly for Grace or yourself."