The man took off his fur cap. "If Miss Rawlinson would like to see Mrs. Sandberg, I'll drive her round," he suggested. "We'll catch you in a league or so. Gregory has a bit of patching to do on his off-side trace."

"He might have had things straight for once," grumbled Wyllard half-aloud.

Winifred permitted Sproatly to help her into his wagon—a high, narrow-bodied vehicle, mounted on tall, spidery wheels—but she had to hold fast to the seat while they jolted across the track and through a sea of mire into the unpaved street of the little town. She liked Sproatly's voice and manner, though she was far from prepossessed by his appearance. Two or three minutes later he stopped before a little wooden house, where they were received by a tall, hard-faced woman, who frowned at the man.

"Ye'll tak' your patent medicines somewhere else. I'm wanting none," she said.

Sproatly grinned. "You needn't be afraid of them. They couldn't hurt you. I was talking to a Winnipeg doctor who'd a notion of coming out a day or two ago. I told him if he did he'd have to bring an ax along."

Then he explained that Wyllard had sent Miss Rawlinson there, and the woman favored her with a glance of careful scrutiny.

"Weel," she said, "ye look quiet, anyway." She added, as if further satisfied, "I'll make ye a cup of tea if ye can wait."

Sproatly assured her that they had not time to accept her hospitality. The girl went into the house for a few moments and returned to the wagon with relief in her face.

"I think I owe Mr. Wyllard a good deal," she said.

Sproatly laughed. "You're not exactly unusual in that respect," he declared as he started the horses. "But you had better hold tight. These beasts are less than half broken."

He flicked the horses with the whip, and they went across the track at a gallop, hurling great clods of mud left and right, while the group of loungers who still stood about the station raised a shout.

"Got any little pictures with nice motters on them?" asked one, and another flung a piece of information after the jolting wagon.

"There's a Swede down at Branker's wants a bottle that will limber up a wooden leg," he said.

Sproatly grinned, and waved his hands to them before he turned to Winifred.

"We have to get through before dark, if possible, or I'd stop and sell them something sure," he said. "Parts of the trail further on are simply horrible."

It occurred to Winifred that the road was far from good as it was, for spouts of mud flew up beneath the sinking hoofs and wheels, and she was already unpleasantly spattered.

"You think you would have succeeded making a sale?" she asked with amusement in her eyes.

"Oh, yes," Sproatly answered confidently. "If I couldn't plant something on to them when they'd given me a lead like that, I'd be no use in this business. At present, my command of Western phraseology is my fortune."

"You sell things, then?"

Sproatly pointed to two big boxes in the bottom of the wagon. "Anything from cough cure to hair restorer, besides a general purpose elixir that's specially prepared for me. It's adaptable to any complaint and season. All you have to do"—and he lowered his voice confidently—"is to put on a different label."

Winifred laughed when she met his eyes.

"What happens to the people who buy it?" she inquired.

"Most of them are bachelors, and tough. They've stood their own cooking so long that they ought to be impervious to anything, and if anybody's really sick I hold off and tell him to wait until he can get a doctor. A sensitive conscience," he added reflectively, "is quite a handicap in this business."

"You have always been in it?" asked Winifred.

"No," replied Sproatly, "although you mightn't believe it, I was raised with the idea that I should have my choice between the Church and the Bar. The idea, however, proved—impracticable—which is rather a pity. It has seemed to me that a man who can work off cough cures and cosmetics on to healthy folks and talk a scoffer off the field, ought to have made his mark in either calling."

He looked at her as if for confirmation of this view, but Winifred, who laughed again, glanced at the two wagons that, several miles away, moved across the gray-white sweep of prairie.

"Shall we overtake them?" she asked.

"We'll probably come up with Gregory. I'm not sure about Wyllard."

"He drives faster horses?"

"That's not quite the reason. Gregory has patched up one trace with a bit of string, and odd bolts are rather addicted to coming out of his wagon. Sometimes it makes trouble. I've known the team to leave him sitting on the prairie, thinking of endearing names for them, while they came home with the pole."

"Does he generally let things fall into that state?"

Sproatly was evidently on his guard.

"Well," he rejoined, "it's certainly that kind of wagon."

He flicked the team again, and the jolting rendered it difficult for Winifred to ask any more questions. The prairie sod was soft with the thaw, and big lumps of it stuck to the wheels, which every now and then plunged into ruts the other vehicles had made.

In the meanwhile, Agatha and Hawtrey had found it almost impossible to sustain a conversation. It was a relief to the girl to be able to sit silent and observant beside the man whom she had promised to marry. The string-patched trace still held, and the wagon pole was a new one. The white grass was tussocky and long, and the trail here and there had been churned into quagmire. Hawtrey had packed the thick driving-robe high about Agatha and had slipped one arm about her waist beneath it; but she was conscious that she rather suffered this than derived any satisfaction from it. She strove to assure herself that she was jaded with the journey, which was, in fact, the case, and that the lowering sky, and the cheerless waste they were crossing, had occasioned the dejection that she felt. There was not a tree upon the vast sweep of bleached grass which ran all around her to the horizon. It was inexpressibly lonely, a lifeless desolation, with only the plowed-up trail to show that man had ever traversed it. The raw wind which came across the prairie set her shivering.

She was forced, however, to admit that her weariness and the dreary surroundings did not quite explain everything. Gregory's first embrace had brought her no happiness, and now the close pressure of his arm left her quite unmoved. This was disconcerting; but while she would admit no definite reason for it, there was creeping upon her a vague consciousness that the man beside her was not the one of whom she had so often thought in England. He seemed different—almost, in fact, a stranger—though she could not exactly tell where the change in him began. His laughter jarred upon her. Some of the things he said appeared almost inane, and others were tinged with a self-confidence that did not become him. It seemed to her that he was shallow and lacking in comprehension. Once she found herself comparing him with another man. She broke off that train of thought abruptly, and once more endeavored to find the explanation in herself. Weariness had produced this captious, hypercritical fit, and by and by she would become used to him, she said.

Hawtrey was, at least, not effusive, for which she was thankful. When they reached a smoother stretch of road he began to talk of England.

"I suppose you saw a good deal of my folks when you were at the Grange," he said.

"No," answered Agatha, "I saw them once or twice."

"Ah!" he replied, with a trace of sharpness, "then they were not particularly agreeable?"

It seemed to Agatha that he was tactless in suggesting anything of the kind, but she replied candidly.

"One could hardly go quite so far as that," she told him. "Still, I couldn't help a feeling that it was rather an effort for them to be gracious to me."

"They did what they could to make things pleasant when they were first told of our engagement."

Agatha was too weary to be altogether on her guard. His relatives' attitude had wounded her, and she answered without reflection.

"I have fancied that was because they never quite believed it would lead to anything."

She knew this was the truth now, though it was the first time the explanation had occurred to her. Gregory's relatives, who were naturally acquainted with his character, had not expected him to carry out his promise. She felt that she had been injudicious in what she told him when she heard his harsh laugh.

"I'm afraid they never had a very great opinion of me," he remarked.

"Then," said Agatha, looking up at him, "it will be our business to prove them wrong; but I can't help feeling that you have undertaken a big responsibility, Gregory. There must be so much that I ought to do, and I know so little about your work in this country." She turned, and glanced with a shiver at the dim, white prairie. "The land looks so forbidding and unyielding. It must be very hard to turn it into wheat fields—to break it in."

It was merely a hint of what she felt, and it was rather a pity that Hawtrey, who lacked imagination, usually contented himself with the most obvious meaning of the spoken word. Things might have gone differently had he responded with comprehending sympathy.

"Oh," he said, with a laugh that changed her mood, "you'll learn, and I don't suppose it will matter a great deal if you don't do it quickly. Somehow or other one worries through."

She felt that this was insufficient, though she remembered that his haphazard carelessness had once appealed to her. Now she realized that to undertake a thing light-heartedly was a very different matter from carrying it out successfully. Then it once more occurred to her that she was becoming absurdly hypercritical, and she strove to talk of other things.

She did not find it easy, nor, though he made the effort, did Hawtrey. There was a restraint upon him, for when he first saw her he had been struck by the change in the girl. She was graver than he remembered her, and, it seemed, very much more reserved. He had tried and failed, as he thought of it, to strike any response in her. He became uneasily conscious that he could not talk to her as he could to Sally Creighton. There was something wanting in him or her, but he could not at the moment tell what it was. Still, he assured himself, things would be different next day, for the girl was evidently very tired.

The creeping dusk settled down upon the wilderness. The horizon narrowed, and the stretch of grass before them grew dim. The trail they now drove into grew rapidly rougher, and it was quite dark when they came to the brink of a declivity still at least a league from the Hastings homestead. It was one of the steep ravines that seam the prairie. A birch bluff rose on either side, and a little creek flowed through the hollow.

Hawtrey swung the whip when they reached the top, and the team plunged furiously down the slope. He straightened himself in his seat with both hands on the reins, and Agatha held her breath when she felt the light vehicle tilt as the wheels on one side sank deep in a rut. Something seemed to crack, and she saw the off horse stumble and plunge. The other horse flung its head up, Hawtrey shouted something, and there was a great smashing and snapping of undergrowth and fallen branches as they drove in among the birches. The team stopped, and Hawtrey, who sprang down, floundered noisily among the undergrowth, while another thud of hoofs and rattle of wheels grew louder behind them up the trail. In a minute or two Hawtrey came back and lifted Agatha down.

"It's the trace broken. I had to make the holes with my knife, and the string's torn through," he explained. "Voltigeur got it round his feet, and, as usual, tried to bolt. We'll make the others pull up and take you in."

They went back to the trail together, and reached it just as Hastings reined in his team. Hastings got down and walked back with Hawtrey to the stalled wagon. It was a minute or two before they reappeared again, and Mrs. Hastings, who had alighted, drew Hawtrey aside.

"I almost think it would be better if you didn't come any further to-night," she said.

"Why?" Gregory asked sharply.

"I can't help thinking that Agatha would prefer it. For one thing, she's rather jaded, and wants quiet."

"You feel sure of that?"

There was something in the man's voice which suggested that he was not quite satisfied, and Mrs. Hastings was silent a moment.

"It's good advice, Gregory," she said. "She'll be better able to face the situation after a night's rest."

"Does it require much facing?" Hawtrey asked dryly.

Mrs. Hastings turned from him with a sign of impatience. "Of course it does. Anyway, if you're wise you'll do what I suggest, and ask no more questions."

Then she got into the wagon, and Hawtrey stood still beside the trail, feeling unusually thoughtful as they drove away.



CHAPTER XI

AGATHA'S DECISION

It was with an expectancy which was toned down by misgivings that Hawtrey drove over to the homestead where Agatha was staying the next afternoon. The misgivings were not unnatural, for he had been chilled by the girl's reception of him on the previous day, and her manner afterwards had, he felt, left something to be desired. Indeed, when she drove away with Mrs. Hastings, he had considered himself an injured man.

His efforts to mend the harness, and extricate the wagon in the dark, which occupied him for an hour, had helped partly to drive the matter from his mind, and when he reached his homestead rather late that night he went to sleep, and slept soundly until sunrise. Hawtrey was a man who never brooded over his troubles beforehand, and this was one reason why he did not always cope with them successfully when they could no longer be avoided.

When he had eaten his breakfast, however, he became sensible of a certain pique against both Mrs. Hastings and Agatha. In planning for the day he was forced to remember that he had no hired man, and that there was a good deal to be done. He decided that it might be well to wait until the afternoon before he called on Agatha, and for several hours he drove his team through the crackling stubble. His doubts and irritation grew weaker as he worked, and when, later, he drove into sight of the Hastings homestead, his buoyant temperament was beginning to reassert itself. Clear sunshine streamed down upon the prairie out of a vault of cloudless blue, and he felt that any faint shadow that might have arisen between him and the girl could be readily swept away. He was a little less sure of this when he saw Agatha, who sat near an open window, in a scantily furnished match-boarded room. She had not slept at all. Her eyes were heavy, but there was a look of resolution in them which seemed out of place just then, and it struck him that she had lost the freshness which had been her distinguishing charm in England.

She rose when he came in, and then, to his astonishment, drew back a pace or two when he moved impulsively towards her.

"No," she said, with a hand raised restrainingly, "you must hear what I have to say, and try to bear with me. It is a little difficult, Gregory, but it must be said at once."

Gregory stood still, gazing at her with consternation in his face, and for a moment she looked steadily at him. It was a painful moment, for she was gifted with a clearness of vision which she almost longed to be delivered from. She saw that the impression which had brought her a vague sense of dismay on the previous afternoon was wrong. The trouble was that he had not changed at all. He was what he had always been, and she had merely deceived herself when she had permitted her girlish fancy to endow him with qualities and graces which he had never possessed. There was, however, no doubt that she had still a duty toward him.

He spoke first with a trace of hardness in his voice.

"Then," he rejoined, "won't you sit down? This is naturally a little—embarrassing—but I'll try to listen."

Agatha sank into a seat by the open window, for she felt physically worn out, and before her there was a task from which she shrank.

"Gregory," she began, "I feel that we have come near making what might prove to be a horrible mistake."

"We?" repeated Hawtrey, while the blood rose into his weather-darkened face. "That means both of us."

"Yes," asserted Agatha, with a steadiness that cost her an effort.

Hawtrey went a step nearer to her. "Do you want me to admit that I've made a mistake."

"Are you quite sure you haven't?"

She flung the question at him sharply with tense apprehension, for, after all, if Gregory was sure of himself, there was only one course open to her. He leaned upon the table, gazing at her, and as he studied her face his indignation melted, and doubts crept into his mind.

She looked weary, and grave, almost haggard, and it was a fresh, light-hearted girl with whom he had fallen in love in England. The mark of the last two years of struggle was plain on her. He tried to realize what he had looked for when he had asked her to marry him, and could not get a clear conception of his vision. In the back of his mind was a half-formulated idea that he had dreamed of a cheerful companion, somebody to amuse him. She scarcely seemed likely to be entertaining now.

Gregory was not a man who could face a crisis collectedly, and his thoughts became confused until one idea emerged from them. He had pledged himself to her, and the fact laid a certain obligation upon him. It was his part to overrule any fancies she might be disposed to indulge in.

"Well," he said stoutly, "I'm not going to admit anything of that kind. The journey has been too much for you. You haven't got over it yet." He lowered his voice, and his face softened. "Aggy, dear, I've waited four years for you."

His words stirred her, for they were certainly true, and his gentleness had also its effect. The situation was becoming more and more difficult, since it seemed impossible to make him understand that he would in all probability speedily tire of her. To make it clear that she could never be satisfied with him was a thing from which she shrank.

"How have you passed those four years?" she asked, to gain time.

For a moment his conscience smote him. He remembered the trips to Winnipeg, and the dances to which he had escorted Sally Creighton. It was, however, evident that Agatha could have heard nothing of Sally.

"I spent them in hard work. I wanted to make the place comfortable for you," he answered. "It is true"—and he added this with a twinge of uneasiness, as he remembered that his neighbors had done much more with less incentive—"that it's still very far from what I would like, but things have been against me."

The speech had a far stronger effect than he could have expected, for Agatha remembered Wyllard's description of what the prairie farmer had to face. Those four years of determined effort and patient endurance, as she pictured them, counted heavily against her in the man's favor. It flashed upon her that, after all, there might have been some warrant for the view that she had held of Gregory's character when he had fallen in love with her. He was younger then. There must have been latent possibilities in him, but the years of toil had killed them and hardened him. It was for her sake he had made the struggle, and now it seemed unthinkable that she should renounce him because he came to her with the dust and stain of it upon him. For all that, she was possessed with a feeling that she would involve them both in disaster if she yielded. Something warned her that she must stand firm.

"Gregory," she said, "I seem to know that we should both be sorry afterwards if I kept my promise."

Hawtrey straightened himself with a smile that she recognized. She had liked him for it once, for it had then suggested the joyous courage of untainted youth. Now, however, it struck her as merely hinting at empty, complacent assurance. She hated herself for the fancy, but it would not be driven away.

"Well," he replied, "I'm quite willing to face that hazard. I suppose this diffidence is only natural, Aggy, but it's a little hard on me."

"No," replied the girl with emphasis, "it's horribly unnatural, and that's why I'm afraid. I should have come to you gladly, without a misgiving, feeling that nothing could hurt me if I was with you. I wanted to do that, Gregory—I meant to—but I can't." Then her voice fell to a tone that had vibrant regret in it. "You should have made sure—you should have married me when you last came home."

"But I'd nowhere to take you. The farm was only half-broken prairie, the homestead almost unhabitable."

Agatha winced at this. It was, no doubt, true, but it seemed horribly petty and commonplace. His comprehension stopped at such details as these, and he had given her no credit for the courage which would have made light of bodily discomfort.

"Do you think that would have mattered? We were both very young then, and we could have faced our troubles and grown up together. Now we're not the same. You let me grow up alone."

Hawtrey shrugged his shoulders. "I haven't changed," he told her as she looked at him with deep-seeing eyes.

He contented himself with that, and Agatha grew more resolute. There was not a spark of imagination in him, scarcely even a spark of the passion which, if it had been strong enough, might have swept her away in spite of her shrinking. He was a man of comely presence, whimsical, and quick, as she remembered, at light badinage, but when there was a crisis to be grappled with he somehow failed. His graces were on the surface. There was no depth in him.

"Aggy," he added humbly, when he should have been dominant and forceful, "it is only a question of a little time. You will get used to me."

"Then," pleaded the girl, who clutched at the chance of respite, "give me six months from to-day. It isn't very much to ask, Gregory."

Gregory wrinkled his brows. "It's a great deal," he answered slowly. "I feel that we shall drift further and further apart if once I let you go."

"Then you feel that we have drifted a little already?"

"I don't know what has come over you, Aggy, but there has been a change. I'm what I was, and I want to keep you."

Agatha rose and turned towards him a white face. "If you are wise you will not urge me now," she said.

Hawtrey met her gaze for a moment, and then made a sign of acquiescence as he turned his eyes away. He recognized that this was a new Agatha, one whose will was stronger than his. Yet he was astonished that he had yielded so readily.

"Well," he agreed, "if it must be, I can only give way to you, but I must be free to come over here whenever I wish." Suddenly a thought struck him. "But you may hare to go away," he added, with sudden concern. "If I am to wait six months, what are you to do in the meanwhile?"

Agatha smiled wearily. Now that the respite had been granted her, the question he had raised was not one that caused her any great concern.

"Oh," she answered, "we can think of that later. I have borne enough to-day. This has been a little hard upon me, Gregory."

"I don't think it has been particularly easy for either of us," returned Hawtrey, with grimness. "Anyway, it seems that I'm only distressing you." There was a baffled, puzzled look in his face. "Naturally, this is so unexpected that I don't know what to say. I'll come back when I feel I've grasped the situation."

Taking one of her hands, he stooped and kissed her cheek.

"My dear," he said, "I only want to make it as easy as I can. You'll try to think of me favorably."

He went out and left her sitting beside the open window. A warm breeze swept into the room; outside a blaze of sunshine rested on the prairie. The ground about the house was torn up with wheel ruts, for the wooden building rose abruptly without fence or garden from the waste of whitened grass. Close to the house stood a birch-log barn or stables, its sides curiously ridged and furrowed where the trunks were laid on one another. Further away rose a long building of sod, and a great shapeless yellow mound with a domed top towered behind it. It was most unlike a trim English rick, and Agatha wondered what it could be. As a matter of fact, it was a not uncommon form of granary, the straw from the last thrashing flung over a birch-pole framing. Behind it ran a great breadth of knee-high stubble, blazing ocher and cadmium in the sunlight. It had evidently extended further than it did, for a blackened space showed where a fire had been lighted to destroy it. In the big field Hastings was plowing. Clad in blue duck he plodded behind his horses, which stopped now and then when the share jarred against a patch of still frozen soil. Further on two other men, silhouetted in blue against the whitened grass, drove spans of slowly moving oxen that hauled big breaker plows, and the lines of clods that lengthened behind them gleamed in the sunlight a rich chocolate-brown. Beyond them the wilderness ran unbroken to the horizon.

Agatha gazed at it all vacantly, but the newness and strangeness of it reacted upon her. She felt very desolate and lonely, but she remembered that she must still grapple with a practical difficulty. She could not stay with Mrs. Hastings indefinitely, and she had not the least notion where to go or what she was to do. She was leaning back in her chair wearily with half-closed eyes when her hostess came in and looked at her with a smile that suggested comprehension. Mrs. Hastings was thin, and seemed a trifle worn, but she had shrewd, kindly eyes. She wore a plain print dress which was dusted here and there with flour.

"So you have sent him away!" she exclaimed.

It was borne in upon Agatha that she could be candid with this woman who had already guessed the truth.

"Yes," she replied, "for six months. That is, we are not to decide on anything until they have passed. I felt we must get used to each other. It seemed best."

"To you. Did it seem best to Gregory?"

A flush crept into Agatha's face. Though his acquiescence had been a relief to her, she felt that he might have made a more vigorous protest.

"He gave in to me," she answered.

Mrs. Hastings looked thoughtful. "Well," she observed, "I believe you were wise, but that opens up another question. What are you going to do in the meanwhile?"

"I don't know," confessed Agatha apathetically. "I suppose I shall have to go away—to Winnipeg, most probably. I could teach, I think."

"How are you and Gregory to get used to each other if you go away?"

Agatha made a helpless gesture. "I hadn't looked at it in that light."

"Are you very anxious to get used to him?"

Agatha shrank from the question; but there was a constraining kindliness in the older woman's eyes.

"I daren't quite think about it yet. I mean to try. I must try. I seem to be playing an utterly contemptible, selfish part, but I could not marry him—now!"

Mrs. Hastings crossed the room, and sat down by her side.

"My dear," she said, "as I told you, I think you are doing right, and I believe I know how you feel. Everybody prophesied disaster when I came out to join Allen from a sheltered home in Montreal, and at the beginning my life here was not easy to me. It was all so different, and there were times when I was afraid, and my heart was horribly heavy. If it hadn't been for Allen I think I should have given in and broken down. He understood, however. He never failed me."

Agatha's eyes grew misty, and she turned her head away.

"Yes," she replied, "that would make it wonderfully easier."

"You must forgive me," apologized Mrs. Hastings. "I was tactless, but I didn't mean to hurt you. Well, one difficulty shouldn't give us very much trouble. Why shouldn't you stay here with me?"

Agatha turned towards her abruptly with a look of relief in her face, which faded quickly. She liked this woman, and she liked her husband, but she remembered that she had no claim on them.

"Oh," she declared, "it is out of the question."

"Wait a little. I'm proposing to give you quite as much as you will probably care to do. There are my two little girls to teach, and I think they have rather taken to you. I can scarcely find a minute for their lessons, and, as you have seen, there is a piano which has only a few of the keys broken. Besides, we have only one Scandinavian maid who smashes everything that isn't made of indurated fiber, and I'm afraid she'll marry one of the boys in a month or two. It was only by sending the kiddies to Brandon and getting Mrs. Creighton, a neighbor of ours, to look after Allen, who insisted on my going, that I was able to get to Paris with some Montreal friends. In any case, you'd have no end of duties."

"You are doing this out of—charity!"

Mrs. Hastings laughed. "A week or two ago, Allen wrote to some friends of his in Winnipeg asking them to send me anybody."

The girl's eyes shone mistily. "Oh!" she cried, "you have lifted one weight off my mind."

"I think," observed Mrs. Hastings, "the others will also be removed in due time."

After that she talked cheerfully of other matters, and Agatha listened to her with a vague wonder at her own good fortune in falling in with such a friend.

There are in that country many men and women who are unfettered by conventions. They stretch out an open hand to the stranger and the outcast. Toil has brought them charity in place of hardness, and still retaining, as some of them do, the culture of the cities, they have outgrown all the petty bonds of caste. The wheat-grower and the hired-man eat together. Rights are good-humoredly conceded in place of being fought for, and the sense of grievance and half-veiled suspicion common elsewhere among employes are exchanged for an efficient co-operation. It must, however, be admitted that there are also farmers of another kind, from whom the hired man has occasionally some difficulty in extracting his covenanted wages by personal violence.

The two women had been talking a long time when a team and a jolting wagon swept into sight, and Mrs. Hastings rose as the man who drove pulled up his horses.

"It's Sproatly; I wonder what has brought him here," she remarked.

The man sprang down from the wagon and walked towards the house. She gazed at him almost incredulously.

"He's quite smart," she added. "I don't see a single patch on that jacket, and he has positively got his hair cut."

"Is that an unusual thing in Mr. Sproatly's case?" Agatha inquired.

"Yes," said Mrs. Hastings. "It's very unusual indeed. What is stranger still, he has taken the old grease-spotted band off his hat, after clinging to it affectionately for the last twelve months."

Agatha thought that the soft hat, which fell shapelessly over part of Sproatly's face, needed something to replace the discarded band; but in another moment he entered the room. He shook hands with them both.

"You are looking remarkably fresh, but appearances are not invariably to be depended on, and it's advisable to keep the system up to par," he said with a smile. "I suppose you don't want a tonic of any kind?"

"I don't," declared Mrs. Hastings resolutely; "Allen doesn't, either. Besides, didn't you get into some trouble over that tonic?"

"It was the cough cure," explained Sproatly with a grin. "I sold a man at Lander's one of the large-sized bottles, and when he had taken some he felt a good deal better. Then he seems to have argued the thing out like this: if one dose had relieved the cough, a dozen should drive it out of him altogether, and he took the lot. He slept for forty-eight hours afterward, and when I came across him at the settlement he attacked me with a club. The fault, I may point out, was in his logic. Perhaps you would like some pictures. I've a rather striking oleograph of the Kaiser. It must be like him, for two of his subjects recognized it. One hung it up in his shanty; the other asked me to hold it out, and then pitched a stove billet through the middle of it. He, however, produced his dollar; he said he felt so much better after what he'd done that he didn't grudge it."

"I'm afraid we're not worth powder and shot," said Mrs. Hastings. "Do you ever remember our buying any tonics or pictures from you?"

"I don't, though I have felt that you ought to have done it." Sproatly, who paused a moment, turned towards Agatha with a little whimsical bow. "The professional badinage of an unlicensed dealer in patent medicines may now and then mercifully cover a good deal of embarrassment. Miss Ismay has brought something pleasantly characteristic of the Old Country along with her."

His hostess disregarded the last remark. "Then if you didn't expect to sell us anything, what did you come for?"

"For supper," answered Sproatly cheerfully. "Besides that, to take Miss Rawlinson out for a drive. I told her last night it would afford me considerable pleasure to show her the prairie. We could go round by Lander's and back."

"Then you will probably come across her somewhere about the straw-pile with the kiddies."

Sproatly took the hint, and when he went out Mrs. Hastings laughed.

"You would hardly suppose that was a young man of excellent education!" she exclaimed. "So it's on Winifred's account he has driven over; at first I fancied it was on yours."

Agatha was astonished, but she smiled. "If Winifred favors him with her views about young men he will probably be rather sorry for himself. He lives near you?"

"No," said Mrs. Hastings. "In the summer he lives in his wagon, or under it, I don't know which. Of course, if he's really taken with Winifred he will have to alter that."

"But he has only seen her once—you can't mean that he is serious."

"I really can't speak for Sproatly, but it would be quite in keeping with the customs of the country if he was."

A minute or two later Agatha saw Winifred in the wagon when it reappeared from behind the straw-pile, and Mrs. Hastings turned toward the window.

"She has gone with him," she commented significantly. "Unfortunately, he has taken my kiddies too. If he brings them back with no bones broken it will be a relief to me."



CHAPTER XII

WANDERERS

Agatha had spent a month with Mrs. Hastings. When they were driving over to Wyllard's homestead one afternoon, the older woman pulled up her team while they were still some little distance away from their destination, and looked about her with evident interest. On the one hand, a vast breadth of torn-up loam ran back across the prairie, which was now faintly flecked with green. On the other, plowing teams were scattered here and there across the tussocky sod, and long lines of clods that flashed where the sunlight struck their facets trailed out behind them. The great sweep of grasses that rustled joyously before a glorious warm wind, gleamed luminously, and overhead hung a vault of blue without a cloud in it. Trailing out across it, flocks of birds moved up from the south.

"Harry is sowing a very big crop this year, and most of it on fall back-set," she observed. "He has, however, horses enough to do that kind of thing, and, of course, he does it thoroughly." She glanced toward the place where the teams were hauling unusually heavy plows through the grassy sod. "This is virgin prairie that he's breaking, and he'll probably put oats on it. They ripen quicker. He ought to be a rich man after harvest unless the frost comes, or the market goes against him. Some of his neighbors, including my husband, would have sown a little less and held a reserve in hand."

Agatha remembered what Wyllard had told her one night on board the Scarrowmania, and smiled, for she fancied that she understood the man. He was not one to hedge, as she had heard it called, or cautiously hold his hand. He staked boldly, but she felt that this was not only for the sake of the money that he might hope to gain. It was part of his nature—the result of an optimistic faith or courage that appealed to her, and sheer love of effort. She also guessed that his was not a spasmodic, impulsive activity. She could imagine him holding on as steadfastly with everything against him, exacting all that men and teams and machines could do. It struck her as curious that she should feel so sure of this; but she admitted that it was the case.

Sitting in the driving-seat of a big machine that ripped broad furrows through the crackling sod, he was approaching them. Four horses plodded wearily in front of the giant plow until he thrust one hand over, and there was a rattle and clanking as he swung them and the machine around beside the wagon. Then he got down, and stood smiling up at Agatha with his soft hat in his hand and the sunlight falling full upon his weather-darkened face. It was not a particularly striking face, but there was something in it, a hint of restrained force and steadfastness, she thought, which Gregory's did not possess, and for a moment or two she watched him covertly.

He wore an old blue shirt, open at the throat and belted into trousers of blue duck, and she noticed the fine symmetry of his spare figure. The absence of any superfluous flesh struck her as in keeping with her view of his character. The man was well-endowed physically; but apart from the strong vitality that was expressed in every line of his pose he looked clean, as she vaguely described it to herself. There was an indefinable something about him that was apparently born of a simple, healthful life spent in determined labor in the open air. It became plainer, as she remembered other men upon whom the mark of the beast was unmistakably set. Mrs. Hastings broke the silence.

"Well," she said, "we have driven over as we promised. I've no doubt you will give us supper, but we'll go on and sit with Mrs. Nansen in the meanwhile. I expect you're too busy to talk to us."

Wyllard laughed, and it occurred to Agatha that his laugh was wholesome as well as pleasant.

"I generally am busy," he admitted. "These horses have been at it since sun-up, and they're rather played out now. I'll talk to you as long as you will let me after supper, which will soon be ready."

Agatha noticed that though the near horse's coat was foul with dust and sweat he laid his brown hand upon it, and it seemed to her that the gentleness with which he did it was very suggestive.

Mrs. Hastings, who had been scrutinizing the field, asked, "What's to be the result of all this plowing if we have harvest frost or the market goes against you?"

"Quite a big deficit," answered Wyllard cheerfully.

"And that doesn't cause you any anxiety?"

"I'll have had some amusement for my money."

Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "He calls working from sunrise until it's dark, and afterwards now and then, amusement!" She looked back at Wyllard. "I believe it isn't quite easy for you to hold your back as straight as you are doing, and that off-horse certainly looks as if it wanted to lie down."

Wyllard laughed. "It won't until after supper, anyway. There are two more rows of furrows still to do."

"I suppose that is a hint!" Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha when the wagon jolted on.

"That man," she said, "is a great favorite of mine. For one thing, he's fastidious, though he's fortunately very far from perfect in some respects. He has a red-hot temper, which now and then runs away with him."

"What do you mean by fastidious?"

"It's a little difficult to define, but I certainly don't mean pernicketty. Of course, there is a fastidiousness which makes one shrink from unpleasant things, but Harry's is the other kind. It impels him to do them every now and then."

Agatha made no answer. She was uneasily conscious that it might not be advisable to think too much about this man, and in another minute or two they reached the homestead. The house was a plain frame building that had grown out of an older and smaller one of logs, part of which remained. It was much the same with the barns and stables, for, while they were stoutly built of framed timber or logs, one end of most of them was lower than the rest, and in some cases consisted of poles and sods. Even to her untrained eyes all she saw suggested order, neatness, and efficiency. The whole was flanked and sheltered by a big birch bluff, in which trunks and branches showed through a thin green haze of tiny opening leaves.

A man whom Wyllard had sent after them took the horses.

Agatha commented on what she called the added-to look of the buildings.

"The Range," said Mrs. Hastings, "has grown rapidly since Harry took hold. The old part represents the high-water mark of his father's efforts. Of course," she added reflectively, "Harry has had command of some capital since a relative of his died, but I never thought that explained everything."

They entered the house, and a gray-haired Swedish woman led them through several match-boarded rooms into a big, cool hall. She left them there for a while, and Agatha was absorbed for a minute or two with her impressions of the house. It was singularly empty by comparison with the few English homesteads that she had seen. There were no curtains nor carpets nor hangings of any kind, but it was commodious and comfortable.

"What can a bachelor want with a place like this?" she asked.

"I don't know," answered Mrs. Hastings; "perhaps it's Harry's idea of having everything proportionate. The Range is quite a big, and generally a prosperous, farm. Besides, it's likely that he doesn't contemplate remaining a bachelor forever. Indeed, Allen and I sometimes wonder how he has escaped marriage for so long."

"Is 'escaped' the right word?" Agatha asked.

"It is," asserted Mrs. Hastings with a laugh. "You see, he's highly eligible from our point of view, but at the same time he's apparently invulnerable. I believe," she added dryly, "that's the right word, too."

The Swedish housekeeper appeared again and they talked with her until she went to bring in the six o'clock supper. Soon after the table was laid Wyllard and the men came in. Wyllard was attired as when Agatha had last seen him, except that he had put on a coat. He led his guests to the head of the long table, but the men—there were a number of them—sat below, and evidently had no diffidence about addressing question or comment to their employer.

The men ate with a voracious haste, but that appeared to be the custom of the country, and Agatha could find no great fault with their manners or conversation. The talk was, for the most part, quaintly witty, and some of the men used what struck her as remarkably fitting and original similes. Indeed, as the meal proceeded, she became curiously interested.

The windows were open wide, and a sweet, warm air swept into the barely furnished room. The spaciousness of the room impressed her, and she was pleased with the evident unity of these brown-faced, strong-armed toilers with their leader. At the head of the table he sat, self-contained, but courteous and responsive to all alike, and though they were in an essentially democratic country, she felt that there was something almost feudal in the relations between him and his men. She could not imagine them to be confined to the mere exaction of so much labor and the expectation of payment of wages due. She was pleased that he had not changed his clothing.

So strong was Agatha's interest that she was surprised when the meal was finished. Afterward, she and Mrs. Hastings talked with the housekeeper for a while, and an hour had slipped away when Wyllard suggested that he should show her the slough beyond the bluff.

"It's the nearest approach to a lake we have until you get to the alkali tract," he said.

Agatha went with him through the shadow of the wood, and when they came out among the trees he found her a seat upon a fallen birch. The house and plowing were hidden now, and they were alone on the slope to a slight hollow, in which half a mile of gleaming water lay. Its surface was broken here and there by tussocks of grass and reeds, and beyond it the prairie ran back unbroken, a dim gray waste, to the horizon. The sun had dipped behind the bluff, and the sky had become a vast green transparency. There was no wind now, but a wonderful exhilarating freshness crept into the cooling air, and the stillness was broken only by the clamor of startled wildfowl which Agatha could see paddling in clusters about the gleaming slough.

"Those are ducks—wild ones?" she asked.

"Yes," answered Wyllard; "ducks of various kinds. Most of them the same as your English ones."

"Do you shoot them?"

Agatha was not greatly interested, but he seemed disposed to silence, and she felt, for no very clear reason, that it was advisable to talk of something.

"No," he said, "not often, anyway. If Mrs. Nansen wants a couple I crawl down to the long grass with the rifle and get them for her."

"The rifle? Doesn't the big bullet destroy them?"

"No," returned Wyllard. "You have to shoot their head off or cut their neck in two."

"You can do that—when they're right out in the slough?" asked Agatha, who had learned that it is much more difficult to shoot with a rifle than a shotgun, which spreads its charge.

Wyllard smiled. "Generally; that is, if I haven't been doing much just before. It depends upon one's hands. We have our game laws, but as a rule nobody worries about them, and, anyway, those birds won't nest until they reach the tundra by the Polar Sea. Still, as I said, we never shoot them unless Mrs. Nansen wants one or two for the pot."

"Why?"

"I don't quite know. For one thing, they're worn out; they just stop here to rest."

His answer appealed to the girl. It did not seem strange to her that the love of the lower creation should be strong in this man, who had no hesitation in admitting that the game laws were no restraint to him. When these Lesser Brethren, worn with their journey, sailed down out of the blue heavens, he believed in giving them right of sanctuary.

"They have come a long way?" she asked.

Wyllard pointed towards the south. "From Florida, Cuba, Yucatan; further than that, perhaps. In a day or two they'll push on again toward the Pole, and others will take their places. There's a further detachment arriving now."

Looking up, Agatha saw a straggling wedge of birds dotted in dusky specks against the vault of transcendental blue. The wedge coalesced, drew out again, and dropped swiftly, and the air was filled with the rush of wings; then there was a harsh crying and splashing, and she heard the troubled water lap among the reeds until deep silence closed in upon the slough again.

"The migrating instinct is strangely interesting," she said.

A curious look crept into Wyllard's eyes.

"It gives the poor birds a sad destiny, I think; they're wanderers and strangers without a habitation; there's unrest in them. After a few months on the tundra mosses to gather strength and teach the young to fly, they'll unfold their wings to beat another passage before the icy gales. Some of us, I think, are like them!"

Agatha could not avoid the personal application.

"You surely don't apply that to yourself," she said. "You certainly have a habitation—the finest, isn't it, on this part of the prairie?"

"Yes," answered Wyllard slowly; "I suppose it is. I've now had a little rest and quietness too."

His last remark did not appear to call for an answer, and Agatha sat silent.

"Still," he went on reflectively, "I have a feeling that some day the call will come, and I shall have to take the trail again." He paused, and looked at her before he added, "It would be easier if one hadn't to go alone, or, since that would be necessary, if one had at least something to come back to when the journey was done."

"Must you heed the call?" asked Agatha, who was puzzled by his steady gaze.

"Yes," he said with gravity, "the call will come from the icy North if it ever comes at all."

There was another brief silence. Agatha wondered what he was thinking of, but he soon told her.

"I remember how I came back from there last time," he said. "We were rather late that season, and out of our usual beat when the gale broke upon us in the gateway of the Pole, between Alaska and Asia. We ran before it with a strip of the boom-foresail on one vessel and a jib that blew to ribands every now and then. The schooner was small, ninety tons or so, and for a week she scudded with the gray seas tumbling after her, white-topped, out of the snow and spume. The waves ranged high above her taffrail, curling horribly, but one did not want to look at them. The one man on deck had a line about him, and he looked ahead, watching the vessel screwing round with hove-up bows as she climbed the seas. If he'd let her fall off or claw up, the next wave would have made an end of her. He was knee-deep half the time in icy brine, and his hands had split and opened with the frost, but the sweat dripped from him as he clung to the jarring wheel. The helmsmen had another trouble which preyed on them. They were thinking of the three men they had left behind.

"Well," he added, "we ran out of the gale, and I had bitter words to face when we reached Vancouver. As one result of the trouble I walked out of the city with four or five dollars in my pocket—though there was a share due to me. Then in an open car I rode up into the ranges to mend railroad bridges in the frost and snow. It was not the kind of home-coming one would care to look forward to."

"Ah!" Agatha cried with a shudder, "it must have been horribly dreary."

The man met her eyes. "Yes," he said, "you—know. You came here from far away, I think a little weary, too, and something failed you. Then you felt yourself adrift. There were—it seemed—only strangers around you, but you were wrong in one respect; you were by no means a stranger to me."

He had been leaning against a birch trunk, but now he moved a little nearer, and stood gravely looking down on her.

"You have sent Gregory away?" he questioned.

"Yes," answered Agatha, and, startled, as she was, it did not occur to her that the mere admission was misleading.

Wyllard stretched out his hands. "Then won't you come to me?"

The blood swept into the girl's face. For the moment she forgot Gregory, and was conscious only of an unreasoning impulse which prompted her to take the hands held out to her. She rose and faced Wyllard with burning cheeks.

"You know nothing of me," she said. "Can you think that I would let you take me out of charity?"

"Again you're wrong—on both points. As I once told you, I have sat for hours beside the fire beneath the pines or among the boulders with your picture for company. When I was worn out and despondent you encouraged me. You have been with me high up in the snow on the ranges, and through leagues of shadowy bush. That is not all. There were times when, as we drove the branch line up the gorge beneath the big divide, all one's nature shrank from the monotony of brutal labor. The paydays came around, and opportunities were made for us to forget what we had borne, and had still to bear. Then you laid a restraining hand on me. I could not take your picture where you could not go. Is all that to count for nothing?"

He held out his arms to her. "As to the other question, can you get beyond the narrow point of view? We're in a big, new country where the old barriers are down. We're merely flesh and blood—red blood—and we speak as we feel. Admitting that I was sorry for you—I am—how does that tell against me—or you? There's one thing only that counts at all—I want you."

Agatha was stirred with an emotion that made her heart beat wildly. He had spoken with a force and passion that had nearly swept her away with it. The vigor of the new land throbbed in his voice, and, flinging aside all cramping restraints and conventions, he had claimed her as primitive man claimed primitive woman. Her whole being responded to his love and Gregory faded out of her mind; but there was, after all, pride in her, and she could not quite bring herself to look at life from his point of view. All her prejudices and her traditions were opposed to it. He had made a mistake when he had admitted that he was sorry for her. She did not want his compassion, and she shrank from the thought that she would marry him—for shelter. It brought to her a sudden, shameful confusion as she remembered the haste with which marriages were arranged on the prairie. Then, as the first unreasoning impulse which had almost compelled her to yield to him passed away, she reflected that it was scarcely two months since she had met him in England. It was intolerable that he should think that she would be willing to fall into his arms merely because he had held them out to her.

"It is a little difficult to get beyond one's sense of what is fit," she said. "You—I must say again—can't know anything about me. You have woven fancies about that photograph, but you must recognize that I'm not the girl you have created out of your reveries. In all probability she is wholly unreal, unnatural, visionary." Agatha contrived to smile, for she was recovering her composure. "Perhaps it is easy when one has imagination to endow a person with qualities and graces that could never belong to them. It must be easy"—though she was unconscious of it, there was a trace of bitterness in her voice—"because I know I could do it myself."

Again the man held out his arms. "Then," he said simply, "won't you try? If you can only feel sure that the person has the qualities you admire it is possible that he could acquire one or two."

Agatha drew back. "And I've changed ever so much since that photograph was taken!" she exclaimed with a catch in her voice.

Wyllard admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I recognized that; you were a little immature then. I know that now—but all the graciousness and sweetness in you has grown and ripened. What is more, you have grown just as I seemed to know you would. I saw that clearly the day we met beside the stepping-stones. I would have asked you to marry me in England, only Gregory stood in the way."

The color ebbed suddenly out of the girl's face as she remembered.

"Gregory," she declared in a strained voice, "stands in the way still. I didn't send him away altogether. I'm not sure I made that clear."

Wyllard stood very still for a moment or two.

"I wonder," he said, "if there's anything significant in the fact that you gave me that reason last. He failed you in some way?"

"I'm not sure that I haven't failed him; but I can't go into that."

Again Wyllard stood silent. Then he turned to her with a strong restraint in his face.

"Gregory is a friend of mine," he said, "there is, at least, one very good reason why I should remember it, but it seems that somehow he hadn't the wit to keep you. Well, I can only wait, but when the time seems ripe I shall ask you again. Until then you have my promise that I will not say another word that could distress you. Perhaps I had better take you back to Mrs. Hastings now."

Agatha turned away, and they walked back together silently.



CHAPTER XIII

THE SUMMONS

Mrs. Hastings was standing beside her wagon in the gathering dusk when Agatha and Wyllard joined her. After Wyllard had helped the two women into the vehicle she looked down at him severely as she gathered up the reins.

"By this time Allen will have had to put the kiddies to bed," she said. "Christina, as you might have borne in mind, goes over to Branstock's every evening. Anyway, you'll drive across and see him about that team as soon as you can; come to supper."

"I'll try," promised Wyllard with a certain hesitation. Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha as they drove away.

"Why did he look at you before he answered me?" she asked, and laughed, for there was just light enough left to show the color in the girl's cheek. "Well," she added, "I told Allen he was sure to be the first."

Agatha looked at her in evident bewilderment, but she nodded. "Yes," she said, "of course, I knew it would come. Everybody knows by now that you have fallen out with Gregory."

"But, as I told you, I haven't fallen out with him."

"You certainly haven't married him, and if you have said 'No' to Harry Wyllard because you would sooner take Gregory after all, you're a singularly unwise young woman. Anyway, you'll have to meet Harry when he comes to supper. Allen's fond of a talk with him; I can't have him kept away."

"I was a little afraid of that," replied Agatha slowly. "What makes the situation more difficult is that he told me he would ask me again."

Mrs. Hastings was thoughtful for a moment. "In that case he will in all probability do it; but I don't think you need feel diffident about meeting him, especially as you can't help it. He'll wait and say nothing until he considers it advisable."

She changed the subject, and talked about other matters until they reached the homestead.

As the weeks went by Agatha found that what Mrs. Hastings had told her was warranted. Wyllard drove over every now and then, but she was reassured by his attitude. He greeted her with the quiet cordiality which had hitherto characterized him, and it went a long way towards allaying the embarrassment of which she was conscious at first. By and by, however, she felt no embarrassment at all, in spite of the disturbing possibility that he might at some future time once more adopt the role of lover.

In the meanwhile, she realized that despite the efforts she made to think of him tenderly she was drifting further apart from Gregory. She had two other offers of marriage before the wheat had shot up a hand's breadth above the rich black loam. This was a matter of regret to her, and, though Mrs. Hastings assured her that the "boys" would get over it, she was rather shocked to hear that one of them had shortly afterwards involved himself in difficulties by creating a disturbance in Winnipeg.

The wheat, however, was growing tall when, at Mrs. Hastings' request, Agatha drove over to Willow Range. Wyllard was out when they reached the homestead, and leaving Mrs. Hastings and his housekeeper together, the girl wandered out into the open air. She went through the birch bluff and towards the slough, which had almost dried up now, and it was with a curious stirring of confused feelings that she remembered what Wyllard had said to her there. Through all her thoughts ran a regret that she had not met him four years earlier.

Regrets, however, were useless, and in order to get rid of them she walked more briskly up a low rise of ground where the grass was already turning white again, over the crest of the hill, and down the side to another hollow. The prairie rolled in wide undulations as the sea does when the swell of a distant gale underruns a glassy calm. Agatha had grown fond of the prairie. Its clear skies and fresh breezes had brought the color to her cheeks and given her composure, though there were times when the knowledge that she was no nearer a decision in regard to Gregory weighed heavily upon her. She had seen very little of him and he had not been effusive then. She could not guess what his feelings might be, but it had been a relief to her when he had ridden away from the home of the Hastingses. For a while after she saw him he faded to an unsubstantial, shadowy figure in the back of her mind.

On this afternoon when Agatha tried to put out of her mind the disturbing reflections that came to her as she walked, the prairie stretched away before her, gleaming in the sunlight under a vast sweep of cloudless blue. She was half-way down the long slope when a clash and tinkle reached her, and she noticed that a cloud of dust hung about the hollow where there had been another slough, which evidently had dried up weeks before. As men and horses were moving amid the dust she supposed that they were cutting prairie hay, which grows longer in such places than it does upon the levels. She went on another half-mile, and then sat down, for she had walked farther than she had intended to go. She could now see the men more clearly, and, though it was fiercely hot, they were evidently working at high pressure. Their blue duck clothing and bare brown arms appeared among the white and ocher tinting of the grass that seemed charged with brightness, and the sounds of their activity came up to her. She could distinguish the clashing tinkle of the mowers, the crackle of the harsh stems, and the rattle of wagon wheels.

A great mound of gleaming grass, overhanging two half-seen horses, moved out of the slough, and she watched it draw nearer until she made out Wyllard sitting in the front of it. She sat still until he pulled the team up close beside her and looked down with a smile.

"It's almost two miles to the homestead. If you could manage to climb up I could make you a comfortable place," he said.

Agatha held her hands up with one foot upon a spoke of the wheels as Wyllard leaned down, and next moment she was lifted upwards. She felt his supporting hand upon her waist. Then she found herself standing upon a narrow ledge, clutching at the hay while he tore out several big armfuls of it and flung it back upon the top of the load.



"Now," he announced, "I guess you'll find that a snug enough nest."

She sank into it with a sense of physical satisfaction. The grass was soft and warm; it was scented with the aromatic odors of wild peppermint, and it yielded like a downy cushion beneath her limbs. Still, she was just a little uneasy in mind, for she fancied that she had seen a sudden sign of feeling in Wyllard's face when he had held her for a moment on the ledge of the wagon. She glanced at him and was reassured. He was looking straight before him with unwavering eyes, and his face was set and quiet. Neither of them spoke until the team moved on. Then he turned to her.

"You won't be jolted much," he assured her. "They've been at it since four o'clock this morning."

"That," replied Agatha, "must mean that you rose at three."

Wyllard smiled. "As a matter of fact, it was half-past two. There was no dew last night, and we started early. I've several extra teams this year, and there's a good deal of hay to cut. Of course, we have to get it in the sloughs or any damp place where it's long. We don't sow grass, and we have no meadows like those there are in England."

Agatha understood that he meant to talk about matters of no particular consequence, as he usually did. She had noticed a vein of poetic imagination in him, and his idea that she had been with him through the snow of the lonely ranges and the gloom of the great forests of the Pacific slope appealed to her. Since the day when he told her that he loved her he had spoken only of commonplace subjects. Sitting close beside him in the hay she decided to let him talk about his farm, while she listened half-absently.

"But you have a foreman who could see the teams turned out, haven't you?" she asked, going back to the subject of his early rising.

"I had, but he left me three or four days ago. It's a pity, since I've taken up rather more than I can handle this year."

"Then why didn't you keep him?"

"Martial was a little mulish, and I'm afraid I'm troubled with a shortness of temper now and then. We had a difference of opinion as to the best way to drive the mower into the slough, and he didn't seem to recognize that he should have deferred to me. Unfortunately, as the boys were standing by, I had to insist upon his getting out of the saddle."

He had turned a little further towards her, and Agatha noticed that there was a bruise upon one side of his face. After what he had just told her the sight of it jarred upon her, though she would not admit that there was any reason why it should. She could not deny that on the prairie a resort to physical force might be warranted by the lack of any other remedy, but it hurt her to think of him as descending to an open brawl with one of his men.

Then it occurred to her that the other man in all probability had suffered more, and this brought her a certain sense of satisfaction which she admitted was more or less barbarous. She had made it clear that Wyllard was nothing to her, but she could not help watching him as he lay back against the hay. His wide hat set off his bronzed face, which, though not exactly handsome, was pleasant and reassuring. The dusty shirt and old blue trousers accentuated the long, clean lines of his figure, and she realized with a faint sense of anger that his mere physical perfection, his strength and suppleness, stirred her heart. She recognized a feeling to be judiciously checked. After all, in spite of her denial of it, she was endowed with power to love as women close to nature love, with an emotion all-encompassing and not subject to cold reasoning.

They talked of trifles of no great consequence, for both of them were conscious of the necessity for a certain reticence; and when they reached the homestead Agatha joined Mrs. Hastings, while Wyllard pitched the hay off the wagon. He came in to supper presently with about half of his men, and they all sat down together in the long, barely furnished room. Wyllard was unusually animated. He drew Mrs. Hastings into a bout of whimsical badinage, which was interrupted when a beat of hoofs rose from the prairie.

"Somebody's riding in; I wonder what he wants," remarked Wyllard. "I certainly don't expect anybody."

The drumming of hoofs rang more sharply through the open windows, for the sod was hard and dry. It stopped suddenly and Agatha saw Wyllard start as a man came into the room. He was a little, thick-set man with a seamed and tanned face. He was dressed in rather old blue serge, and he walked as if he were a seaman.

The stranger stood still, looking about him, and Wyllard's lips set tight. A thrill of apprehension ran through Agatha, for she felt that she knew what this stranger's errand must be.

Wyllard rose and walked towards the man with outstretched hand.

"Sit right down and have some supper. You'll want it if you have ridden in from the railroad," he said. "We'll talk afterwards."

The stranger nodded. "I'm from Vancouver," he announced, "had quite a lot of trouble tracing you."

He sat down, and Wyllard, who sent a man out to take the newcomer's horse, went back to his seat, but he was very quiet during the remainder of the meal. When supper was finished he asked Mrs. Hastings to excuse him, and leading the stranger into a smaller room, pulled out two chairs and laid a cigar on the table.

"Now you can get ahead," he said laconically.

The seaman fumbled in his pocket, and taking out a slip of wood handed it to his companion.

"That's what I came to bring you," he remarked.

Wyllard's eyes grew grave as he gazed at the thing. It was a slip of willow which grows close up to the limits of eternal ice, and it bore a rude representation of the British ensign union down, which signifies "In distress." Besides this there were one or two indecipherable words scratched on it, and three common names rather more clearly cut. Wyllard recognized every one of them.

"How did you get it?" he asked, in tense suspense.

The seaman once more felt in his pocket and took out a piece of paper cut from a chart. He flattened the paper out on the table, and it showed, as Wyllard had expected, a strip of the Kamtchatkan coast.

"I guess I needn't tell you where that is," the seaman said, as he pointed to the parallel of latitude that ran across it. "Dunton gave it to me. He was up there late last season well over on the western side. A northeasterly gale fell on them, and took most of the foremast out of their ship. I understand they tried to lash on a boom or something as a jury mast, but it hadn't height enough to set much forward canvas, and that being the case she wouldn't bear more than a three-reefed mainsail. Anyway, they couldn't do anything with her on the wind, and as it kept heading them from the east she sidled away down south through the Kuriles into the Yellow Sea. They got ice-bound somewhere, which explains why Dunton fetched Vancouver only a week ago."

"But the message?"

"When they were in the thick of their troubles they hove to not far off the icy beach, and a Husky came down on them in some kind of boat."

"A Husky?" repeated Wyllard, who knew the seaman meant an Esquimau.

"That's what Dunton called him, but I guess he must have been a Kamtchadale or a Koriak. Anyway, he brought this strip of willow, and he had Tom Lewson's watch. Dunton traded him something for it. They couldn't make much of what he said except that he'd got the message from three white men somewhere along the beach. They couldn't make out how long ago."

"Dunton tried for them?"

"How could he? His vessel would hardly look at the wind, and the ice was piling up on the coast close to lee of him. He hung on a week or two with the floes driving in all the while, and then it freshened hard and blew him out."

The stranger had told his story, and Wyllard, who rose with a quick gesture of deep anxiety, stood leaning on his chairback. His face was grave.

"That," he said, "must have been eight or nine months ago."

"It was. They've been up there since the night we couldn't pick up the boat."

"It's unthinkable," declared Wyllard. "The thing can't be true."

The seaman gravely produced a little common metal watch made in Connecticut, and worth five or six dollars. Opening it, he pointed to a name scratched inside it.

"You can't get over that," he said simply.

Wyllard strode up and down the room. When he sat down again with a clenched hand laid upon the table he and the seaman looked at each other steadily for a moment or two. Then the stranger made a significant gesture.

"You sent them," he said, "what are you going to do?"

"I'm going for them."

The sailor smiled. "I knew it would be that. You'll have to start right away if it's to be done this year. I've my eye upon a schooner."

He lighted a cigar, and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. "Well," he answered, "I'm going with you, but you'll have to buy my ticket to Vancouver. It cleaned me out to get here. We'd a difficulty with a blame gunboat last season, and the boss went back on me. Sealing's not what is used to be. Anyway, we can fix the thing up later. I won't keep you from your friends."

Wyllard left the sailor and though he did not find Mrs. Hastings immediately, he came upon Agatha sitting outside the house. She glanced at his face when he sat down beside her.

"Ah," she said, "you have had the summons."

Wyllard nodded. "Yes," he replied, "that man was the skipper of a schooner I once sailed in. He has come to tell me where those three men are."

He told her what he had heard, and the girl was conscious of mingled admiration and fear, the fear of losing him from her everyday life.

"You are going up there to search for them?" she asked. "Won't it cost you a great deal?"

She saw his face harden as he gazed at the tall wheat, but his expression was resolute.

"Yes," he admitted, "that's a sure thing. Most of my money is locked up in this crop, and there's need of constant watchfulness and effort until the last bushel's hauled in to the elevators. It probably sounds egotistical, but now I've got rid of Martial I can't put my hand on any one as fit to see the thing through as I am. Still, I have to go without delay. What else could I do?"

"Wouldn't the Provincial Government of British Columbia or your authorities at Ottawa take the matter up?"

Wyllard shook his head. "It wouldn't be wise to give them an opportunity. For one thing, they've had enough of sealing cases, and that isn't astonishing. We'll say they applied for the persons of three British subjects who are supposed to be living somewhere in Russian Asia—and for that matter I couldn't be sure that two of them aren't Americans—the Russians naturally inquire what the men were doing there. The answer is that they were poaching for the Russians' seals. Then the affair on the beach comes up, and there's a big claim for compensation and trouble all round. It seems to me the last thing those men—they're practically outlaws—would desire would be to have a Russian expedition sent up on their trail. They would want to lie hidden until they could somehow get off again."

"But how have they lived up there? The whole land is frozen, isn't it, most of the year?" she questioned.

"They had sealing rifles, and the Koriaks make out farther north in their roofed-in pits. One can live on seal and walrus meat and blubber."

Agatha shivered. "But they had no tents, nor furs, nor blankets. It's horrible to imagine it."

"Yes," agreed Wyllard gravely; "that's why I'm going for them."

Agatha sat still a moment. She could realize the magnitude of the sacrifice that he was making, and in some degree the hazards that he must face. It appealed to her with an overwhelming force, but she was also conscious of a strange dismay. She turned to him with a flush of color in her cheeks and her eyes shining.

"Oh," she said, "it's splendid."

Wyllard smiled. "What could I do?" he said, "I sent them."



CHAPTER XIV

AGATHA PROVES OBDURATE

It was two days later when Agatha, coming back from a stroll across the prairie with the two little girls, found Mrs. Hastings awaiting her at the homestead door.

"I'll take the kiddies. Harry Wyllard's here, and he seems quite anxious to see you, though I don't know what he wants," she said.

She flashed a searching glance at the girl, whose face, however, remained impassive. It was not often that Agatha's composure broke down.

"Don't wait," she added, "you had better go in this minute. Allen has been arguing with him the last half-hour, and can't get any sense into him. It seems to me the man's crazy; but he might, perhaps, listen to you."

"I think that is scarcely likely," replied Agatha.

Mrs. Hastings made a sign of impatience. "Then," she rejoined, "it's a pity. Anyway, if he speaks to you about his project you can tell him that it's altogether unreasonable."

She drew aside, and Agatha walked into the room in which she had had her painful interview with Gregory. Wyllard, who rose as she came in, stood quietly watching her.

"Nellie Hastings or her husband has been telling you what they think of my idea?" he said questioningly.

"Yes," Agatha answered. "Their opinion evidently hasn't much weight with you."

"Haven't you a message for me?" he asked. "You were sent to denounce my folly—and you can't do it. If you trusted your own impulses you would give me your benediction instead." He smiled down at her.

Agatha, who was troubled with a sense of regret, saw a suggestive wistfulness in his face.

"No," she said slowly, "I can't denounce your folly, as they call your decision to go North. For one reason, I have no right of any kind to force my views on you."

"You told Mrs. Hastings that?"

It seemed an unwarranted question, but the girl admitted the truth frankly.

"In one sense I did. I suggested that there was no reason why you should listen to me."

Wyllard smiled again. "Nellie and her husband are good friends of mine, but sometimes our friends are a little too officious. Anyway, it doesn't count. If you had had that right, you would have told me to go."

Agatha felt the warm blood rise to her cheeks. It seemed to her that he had paid her a great and sincere compliment in taking it for granted that if she had loved him she would still have bidden him undertake his perilous duty.

"Ah," she said, "I don't know. Perhaps I should not have been brave enough."

It was not a judicious answer. She realized that, but she felt that she must speak with unhesitating candor.

"After all," she added, "can you be quite sure that this is your duty?"

Wyllard kept his eye on her. "No," he said, "I can't. In fact, when I sit down to think I can see at least a dozen reasons why it doesn't concern me. In a case of this kind that's always easy. It's just borne in upon me—I don't know how—that I have to go."

Agatha crossed to the window and sat down. He leaned upon a chairback looking at her gravely.

"Well," he continued, "we'll go on a little further. It seems better that I should make what's in my mind quite clear to you. You see, Captain Dampier and I start in a week."

Agatha was conscious of a shock of dismay.

"We may be back before the winter, but it's also quite likely that we may be ice-nipped before our work is through, and in that case it would be a year at least before we reach Vancouver," he went on steadily after a little pause. "In fact, there's a certain probability that all of us may leave our bones up there. Now, there's a thing I must ask you. Is it only a passing trouble that stands between you and Gregory? Are you still fond of him?"

Agatha's heart beat fast. It would have been a relief to assure herself that she was as fond of Gregory as she had been, but she could not do it.

"That is a point on which I cannot answer you," she declared in a voice that trembled.

"We'll let it go at that. The fact that Gregory sent me over for you implied a certain obligation. How far events have cleared me of it I don't know—and you don't seem willing to tell me. But I believe there is now less cause than there was for me to thrust my own wishes into the background, and, as I start in another week, the situation has forced my hand. I can't wait as I had meant to do, and it would be a vast relief to know that I had made your future safer than it is before I go. Will you marry me at the settlement the morning I start?"

Half-conscious, as she was, of the unselfishness which had prompted this suggestion, Agatha faced him in hot anger.

"Can you suppose for a moment that I would agree to that?" she asked.

"Wait," he pleaded. "Try to look at it calmly. First of all, I want you. You know that—though you have never shown me any tenderness, you can't doubt it—but I can't stay to win your liking. I must go away. As things stand, your future is uncertain; but as my wife it would, at least, be safe. However badly the man I leave in charge of the Range may manage there would be something saved out of the wreck, and I would like to make that something yours. As I said, I may be away a year, perhaps eighteen months, and I may never come back. If I don't return the fact that you would bear my name could cause you no great trouble. It would lay no restraint on you in any way."

Agatha looked him in the eyes, and spoke with quick intensity. "We can't contemplate your not coming back. It's unthinkable."

"Thank you," said Wyllard, still with the grave quietness she wondered at. "Then I'm not sure that my turning up again would greatly complicate the situation. There would, at least, be one way out of the difficulty. You wouldn't find your position intolerable if I could make you fond of me."

Agatha broke into a little, high-strung laugh that was near to weeping.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "aren't you taking too much for granted? Am I really to believe you are making this fantastic offer seriously? Do you suppose I would marry you—for your possessions?"

"My proposition does sound cold-blooded. Perhaps it is in one way, but you wouldn't always find me so practical and calculating. Just now, because my hand is forced, I am only anticipating things. If I live, you will some day have to choose between Gregory and me. In that case he must hold his own if he can."

"Against what you have offered me?" she flung the question at him.

He looked at her with his face set.

"I expect I deserved that. I wanted to make you safe. It's the most pressing difficulty."

The resentment was still in the girl's eyes.

"So far as I am concerned, you seem to believe it is the only difficulty. Oh, do you imagine that an offer of the kind you have made me, made as you have made it, would lead anyone to love you?"

Wyllard spoke with a new tenderness. "When I first saw your picture, and when I saw you afterwards, I loved your gracious quietness. Now you seem to have lost your repose and I love you better as you are. There is one thing, Agatha, that I must ask again, and it's your duty to tell me. Are you fonder of Gregory than you feel you ever could be of me?"

Agatha's eyes fell. She felt that she could not look at him nor could she answer his question honestly as she desired to answer it.

"At least I am bound to him until he releases me."

"Ah!" responded Wyllard, "that is what I was most afraid of. All along it hampered me, and in it you have the reason for my cold, business-like talk to-day. It is another reason why I should go away."

"For fear that you should tempt me from my duty?"

Wyllard's expression changed, and there crept into his eyes a gleam of the passion that he was smothering.

"My dear," he said, "I seem to know that I could make you break faith with that man. You belong to me. For three years you have been everywhere with me. Now I must go away and Gregory will have a clear field, but the probability is in favor of my coming back again, and then, if he has failed to make the most of his chance, I'll enforce my claim."

He seized both her hands, holding them firmly.

"That is my last word. At least, you will let me think that when I go up yonder into the mists and snow I shall take your good wishes for my success away with me."

She lifted her flushed face, and once looked him steadily in the eyes.

"My good wishes are yours, most fervently," she replied. "It would be intolerable that you should fail."

He looked sad as he let her hands fall. "After all," he said, "one can do only what one can."

He went away without another glance at her.

Not long afterwards Mrs. Hastings, who was possessed of a reasonable measure of curiosity, found occasion to enter the room.

"You have said something to trouble Harry?" she began.

"I'm not sure he's greatly troubled. In any case, I told him I would not marry him," Agatha answered.

Mrs. Hastings gave her a glance of compassionate astonishment.

"Oh," she said, "he's mad. Did he tell you that he means to leave Gregory in charge of Willow Range?"

Agatha's face showed her surprise, but Mrs. Hastings nodded reassuringly. "It's a fact," she asserted. "He asked Gregory to meet him here to save time, and"—she turned towards the window—"there's his wagon now."

She went to the door, and then turned again.

"Is there any blood—red blood we will call it—or even common-sense in you? You could have kept Harry here if you had wanted to do so?"

"No," replied Agatha, "I don't think I could. I'm not even sure that, if I'd had the right, I would have done it. He recognized that."

Mrs. Hastings looked at her dubiously. "Then," she commented, "you have either a somewhat extraordinary character, or you are in love with him in a way that is beyond most of us. In any case, I can't help feeling that you will be sorry some day for what you have done."

Next moment the door closed with a bang, and Agatha was left alone to analyze her sensations during her interview with Wyllard. She found the task difficult, for her memory of what had happened was confused and fragmentary. She had certainly been angry with Wyllard. It was humiliating that he had evidently taken it for granted that the greater security she would enjoy as his wife would have preponderance of weight with her, yet there was a certain satisfaction in the reflection that to leave her dependent upon Mrs. Hastings caused him concern. For another thing, his reserve had been perplexing, and it was borne in upon her that it would have cost her a more determined effort to withstand him had he spoken with fire and passion.

If the man had been fervently in love with her, why had he not insisted on that fact? she asked herself. Could it have been because, with the fantastic generosity of which he was evidently capable, he had been willing to leave his friend unhandicapped with an open field? That seemed too much to expect from any man. Then there was the other explanation—that he preferred to leave the choice wholly to her, lest he should tempt her too strongly to break faith with Gregory. This idea brought the blood to her face since it suggested that he believed that he had merely to urge her sufficiently in order to make her yield. There was, it seemed, no satisfactory explanation at all! The one fact remained that he had made her a dispassionate offer of marriage, and had left her to decide.

Wyllard could not have made the matter very much clearer. Shrewdly practical, as he was in some respects, there were times when he acted blindly, merely doing without reasoning what he felt sub-consciously was right. This had more than once involved him in disaster, but in the long run the failures of such men often prove better than the dictates of calculating wisdom.

Agatha found a momentary relief from her thoughts as she watched Hawtrey get down from his wagon and approach the house. The change in him was plainer than it had ever been. It may have been because she had now a standard of comparison that it was so apparent. He was tall and well-favored, and he moved with a jaunty yet not ungraceful swing; but it seemed to her that his bearing was merely the result of an empty self-sufficiency. There was, she felt, no force behind it. Gregory was smiling, and there was certainly a hint of sensuality in his face which suggested that the man might sink into a self-indulgent coarseness. Agatha remembered that she was still pledged to him and determinedly brushed these thoughts aside.

Hawtrey entered a room where, with a paper in his hand, Wyllard sat awaiting him.

"I asked you to drive over here because it would save time," said Wyllard. "I have to go in to the railroad at once. Here's a draft of the scheme I suggested. You had better tell me if there's anything you're not quite satisfied with."

He threw the paper on the table, and Hawtrey took it up.

"I'm to farm and generally manage the Range on your behalf," said Hawtrey after reading its contents. "My percentage to be deducted after harvest. I'm empowered to sell out grain or horses as appears advisable, and to have the use of teams and implements for my own place when occasion requires it."

He looked up. "I've no fault to find with the thing, Harry. It's generous."

"Then you had better sign it, and we'll get Hastings to witness it in a minute or two. In the meanwhile there's a thing I have to ask you. How do you stand in regard to Miss Ismay?"

Hawtrey pushed his chair back noisily. "That," he said, "is a subject on which I'm naturally not disposed to give you any information. How does it concern you?"

"In this way. Believing that your engagement must be broken off, I asked Miss Ismay to marry me."

Hawtrey was clearly startled, but in a moment or two he smiled.

"Of course," he said, "she wouldn't. As a matter of fact, our engagement isn't broken off. It's merely extended."

The two men looked at each other in silence for a moment or two, and there was a curious hardness in Wyllard's eyes. Hawtrey spoke again.

"In view of what you have just told me, why did you want to put me, of all people, in charge of the Range?" he asked.

"I'll be candid," answered Wyllard. "For one thing, you held on when I was slipping off the trestle that day in British Columbia. For another, you'll make nothing of your own holding, and if you run the Range as it ought to be run it will put a good many dollars into your pocket, besides relieving me of a big anxiety. If you're to marry Miss Ismay, I'd sooner she was made reasonably comfortable."

Hawtrey looked up with a flush in his face.

"Harry," he said, "this is extravagantly generous."

"Wait," returned Wyllard; "there's a little more to be said. I can't be back before the frost, and I may be away eighteen months. While I am away you will have a clear field—and you must make the most of it. If you are not married when I come back I shall ask Miss Ismay again. Now"—and he glanced at his comrade steadily—"does this stand in the way of you're going on with the arrangement we have arrived at?"

There was a rather tense silence for a moment or two, and then Hawtrey said:

"No; after all there is no reason why it should do so. It has no practical bearing upon the other question."

Wyllard rose. "Well," he suggested, "if you will call Allen Hastings in we'll get this thing fixed up."

The document was duly signed, and a few minutes later Wyllard drove away.

Mrs. Hastings contrived to have a few words with Hawtrey before he left the house.

"I've no doubt that Harry took you into his confidence on a certain point," she remarked.

"Yes," admitted Hawtrey, "he did. I was a little astonished, besides feeling rather sorry for him. There is, however, reason to believe that he'll soon get over it."

"You feel sure of that?" Mrs. Hastings smiled.

"Isn't it evident? If he had cared much about her he certainly wouldn't have gone away."

"You mean you wouldn't?"

"No," declared Hawtrey, "there's no doubt of that."

Mrs. Hastings smiled again. "Well," she commented, "I would like to think you were right about Harry; it would be a relief to me."

Hawtrey presently drove away, and soon after he left the homestead Agatha approached Mrs. Hastings.

"There's something I must ask you," she said. "Has Gregory consented to take charge of Wyllard's farm?"

"He has," answered Mrs. Hastings in her dryest tone.

There was a flash in Agatha's eyes.

"Oh," she said, "it's almost unendurable."

Agatha saw Wyllard only once again, and that was when he called early one morning. He got down from the wagon where Dampier sat, and shook hands with her and Allen and Mrs. Hastings. Few words were spoken, and she could not remember what she said, but when he swung himself up again and the wagon jolted away into the white prairie she went back to the house with a feeling of loss and depression.



CHAPTER XV

THE BEACH

For a fortnight after they reached Vancouver Wyllard and Dampier were very busy. They had various difficulties to contend with, for while they would have preferred to slip away to sea as quietly as possible a British vessel's movements are fenced about with many formalities, and they did not wish to ship a white man who could be dispensed with. Wyllard knew there were sailors and sealers in Vancouver and down Puget Sound who would have gone with him, but there was a certain probability of their discussing their exploits afterwards in the saloons ashore, which was about the last thing that he desired. It was essential that he should avoid notoriety as much as possible.

He had further trouble about obtaining provisions and general necessaries, for considerably more attention than the free-lance sealers cared about was being bestowed upon the North, and he did not desire to arouse the curiosity of the dealers as to why he was filling his lazaret up with Arctic stores. He obviated that difficulty by dividing his orders among all of them, and buying as little as possible. Dampier proved an adept at the difficult business, and eventually the schooner Selache, painted a pale green, crept out from the Narrows, at dusk one evening, under all plain sail, with her big main-boom making at least a fathom beyond her taffrail. On board were Wyllard, Dampier, and two other white men. A week later the Selache sailed into a deep, rock-walled inlet on the western coast of Vancouver Island. At the settlement the storekeeper made no difficulty about selling Wyllard all his flour and canned goods at higher figures than there was any probability of obtaining from the local ranchers.

The Selache slid down the inlet again, and lay for several days in a forest-shrouded arm near the mouth of it. When she once more dropped her anchor off a Siwash rancherie far up on the wild west coast, she was painted a dingy gray, and her sawn-off boom just topped her stern. One does not want a great main-boom in the northern seas, and a big mainsail needs men to handle it. Wyllard, however, shipped several sea-bred Indians who had made perilous voyages on the trail of the seal and halibut in open canoes. All of them had also sailed in sealing schooners. Their comrades sold him furs, and filled part of the hold with redwood billets and bark for the stove, for he had not considered it advisable to load too much Wellington coal.

Wyllard pushed out into the waste Pacific, and once when a beautiful big white mail boat reeled by him, driving with streaming bows into an easterly gale, he sent back a message to his friends upon the prairie. It duly reached them, for three weeks afterward Allen Hastings, opening The Colonist, which he had ordered from Victoria as soon as Wyllard sailed, read to his wife and Agatha a paragraph in the shipping news:

"Empress of India, from Yokohama, reports having passed small gray British schooner, flying——" There followed several code letters, the latitude and longitude, and a line apparently by the water-front reporter: "No schooner belonging to this city allotted the signal in question."

Hastings smiled as he laid down the paper. "No," he observed, "that signal is Wyllard's private code. Agatha, won't you reach me down my map of the Pacific? It's just behind you."

As he looked around he noticed the significant expression on his wife's face, for the girl already had turned towards the shelf where he kept the lately purchased map.

The easterly gale that started did not last, for the wind came out of the west and north, and sank to foggy calms when it did not blow wickedly hard. This meant that the Selache's course was all to windward, and though they drove her unmercifully under reefed book-foresail, main trysail, and a streaming jib or two, with the brine going over her, she had made little headway when each arduous day was done. They were drenched to the skin continuously, and lashed by stinging spray. Cooking except of the crudest kind was out of the question, and sleep would have been impossible to any but worn-out sailors. The little crew was often aroused in the blackness of the night to haul down a burst jib, to get in another reef, or to crawl out on a plunging bowsprit washed by icy seas as the schooner lay with her lee rail under. Glad as they were of the respite it was even more trying to lie rolling wildly on the big smooth waves that hove out of the windless calm, while everything in the vessel banged to and fro. When the breeze came screaming through the fog or rain they sprang to make sail again.

Fate seemed to oppose them, as it was certain that, if their purpose was suspected, the hand of every white man whom they might come across would be against them. But they held on over leagues of empty ocean.

The season wore away, and at last the wind freshened easterly, and they ran for a week under boom-foresail and a jib, with the big gray combers curling as they foamed by high above her rail. Then the wind fell, and Dampier, who got an observation, armed his deep-sea lead, and, finding shells and shoal water, went aft to talk to Wyllard with the strip of Dunton's chart.

Wyllard, who was clad in oilskins, stood by the wheel. His face was tanned and roughened by cold and stinging brine. There was an open sore upon one of his elbows, and both his wrists were raw. Forward, a white man and two Siwash were standing about the windlass, and when the bows went up a dreary stretch of slate-gray sea opened beyond them, beneath the dripping jibs. The Selache was carrying sail, and lurching over the steep swell at some four knots an hour.

Dampier stopped near the wheel, and glanced at Wyllard's oilskins.

"You'll have to take them off. It's stuffed boots and those Indian seal-gut things or furs from now on," he said. "That leather cuff's chewing up your hand."

"We'll cut that out," replied Wyllard; "it's not to the point. Can't you get on?"

Dampier grinned. "We're on soundings, and they and Dunton's longitude 'most agree. With this wind we should pick the beach up in the next two days. Next question is, where were those men?"

"Where are they?" corrected Wyllard.

"If they've pushed on it's probably a different thing, though, if they'd food yonder, I don't quite see why they'd want to push on anywhere. It wouldn't be south, anyway. They'd run up against the Russians there."