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

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

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

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

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

"Do you imagine that he kept them?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Hastings smiled. "Then I must endeavor to have a word or two with her."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"For one thing, because we want to keep you." Mrs. Hastings looked at her with a very friendly smile. "Are you very anxious to make it up with Gregory?" A shiver ran through the girl. "Oh," she exclaimed, "I can't answer you that! I must do what is right!"

To her astonishment, Mrs. Hastings drew her a little nearer, stooped and kissed her.

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

She turned away, thus ending the conversation, but her manner had been so significant that Agatha, who did not sleep well that night, decided, if it was possible, to act on the well-meant advice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You mean by selling wheat down."

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

"That's your view?"

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

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

Hawtrey read the reports with evident interest. All were in the same pessimistic strain, and he could not know that the money-lender had carefully selected them with a view to the effect he hoped to produce. Edmonds, who saw the interest in Hawtrey's eyes, leaned towards him confidentially when he spoke again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'll give you a check for a couple of thousand dollars, which is as far as I care to go just now," he announced with studied carelessness.

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

He pocketed the check that Hawtrey gave him, and then discussed other subjects for half an hour or so before he rose to go.

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



CHAPTER XXI

GREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was getting dusk when Hawtrey and Sally entered the first of the two rooms, where the proprietor's wife was just lighting the big lamp. The woman smiled at Gregory, who was a favorite of hers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well," Hawtrey responded, "I'm not particularly fond of cooking either."

Sally glanced at him with a provoking smile, for he had given her a lead. "Then," she asked with a coquettish raising of the eyebrows, "why don't you get somebody else to do it for you?"

This was, as Gregory recognized, almost painfully direct, but there was no doubt that Sally looked very pretty with the faint flush of color in her cheeks and the tantalizing light in her eyes.

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

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

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

When the woman went out he watched Sally with close and what he imagined was unobtrusive attention while she ate, and though he was aware of the indelicacy of his scrutiny, he was relieved to find that she did nothing that was actually repugnant to him. There was a certain daintiness about the girl, and her frank appreciation of the good things set before her only amused him. She was certainly much more companionable than Agatha had been since she came out to Canada, and her cheerful laughter had a pleasant ring.

When at last the meal was over Sally bade Gregory draw her chair up to the stove.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The man's resistance grew feebler, as it usually did when his prudence was at variance with his desires. Sally's words were in this case wholly guileless, as he recognized, and they stirred him. He made no comment, however, and she spoke again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

"My dear," he faltered, "I can't quite tell you—but you have made me heartily ashamed. I'm afraid it's a very rash thing you are going to do."

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XXII

A PAINFUL REVELATION

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

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

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

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

They were standing in a big comfortless room in the hotel when Sproatly rejoined them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But I sent you to make sure."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agatha objected to this, and Sproatly, who fancied that Mrs. Hastings was watching him, let her go, after which he and the others moved out into the street. Agatha ran back to the room they had left, and, finding the mitten, had reached the head of the stairway when she heard voices behind her in the corridor. She recognized them, and turned in sudden astonishment. Standing in the shadow she involuntarily waited. Not far away a stream of light from the door of the room shone out into the corridor. Next moment Hawtrey and Sally approached the door, and as the light fell upon them the blood surged into Agatha's face, for she remembered the embarrassment in Sproatly's manner, and that he had done all he could to prevent her from going back for the mitten.

Hawtrey spoke to Sally, and there was no doubt whatever that he called her "My dear." Filled with burning indignation, Agatha stood still for a moment and they were almost upon her before she turned and fled precipitately down the stairway. She felt that this was horribly undignified, but she could not stay and face them. When she overtook the others she had recovered her outward composure, and they went on together toward the track. As yet she was conscious only of anger at Gregory's treachery. That feeling possessed her too completely for her to be conscious of anything else.

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

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

Agatha turned away abruptly and walked a little apart from the rest. The thing, she felt, admitted of only one explanation. Sproatly's diplomacy had had a most unfortunate result, and she was sensible of an intolerable disgust. She had kept faith with Gregory, at least as far as it was possible, and he had utterly humiliated her. The affront he had put upon her was almost unbearable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Hastings showed it to her husband.

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

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

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

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

"I should be greatly astonished if she hadn't," answered Mrs. Hastings.

Hastings made an expressive gesture. "Oh," he remarked, "you'll no doubt do what you think wisest. When you come to me for advice you have usually made up your mind, and you merely expect me to tell you that you're right."

Mrs. Hastings thought over the matter for another hour or two. For one thing, Agatha's quiet manner puzzled her, and she did not know that the girl had passed a night in agony of anger and humiliation, and had then become conscious of a relief of which she was ashamed. There was, however, no doubt that while Agatha blamed herself in some degree for what had happened, she did feel as if a weight had been lifted from her heart. She was sitting alone in a shadowy room watching the light die off the snowy prairie outside, when Mrs. Hastings came softly in and sat down beside her.

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

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

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

"How could that be?"

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

Mrs. Hastings thought that the girl's scorn and disgust were perfectly natural, even though, as it happened, they were not quite warranted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agatha looked at Mrs. Hastings with suddenly lifted head. "Of course," she answered. "Can you doubt it?"

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

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

Agatha did not answer. She could not protest that Gregory possessed any of these qualities, and Mrs. Hastings continued:

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

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

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

Agatha contrived to meet the older woman's eyes.

"At least, I would have married him."

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XXIII

THROUGH THE SNOW

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

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

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

The weather moderated a little by and by, and one afternoon Mrs. Hastings drove off to Lander's with the one hired man that they kept through the winter. Mr. Hastings had set out earlier for the bluff, and as the Scandinavian maid had been married and had gone away, Agatha was left in the house with the little girls.

It was bitterly cold, even inside the dwelling, but Agatha was busy baking, and she failed to notice that the temperature had become almost Arctic, until she stood beside a window as evening was closing in. A low, dingy sky hung over the narrowing sweep of prairie which stretched back, gleaming lividly, into the creeping dusk, but a few minutes later a haze of snow whirled across it and cut off the dreary scene.

The light died out suddenly, and Agatha and the little girls drew their chairs close up to the stove. The house was very quiet, and Agatha could hear the mournful wailing of the wind about it, with now and then the soft swish of driven snow upon the walls and roofing shingles.

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

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

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

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

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

That was one difficulty overcome, but the next appeared more serious. She must find the bluff as soon as possible, and in the snow-filled darkness she could not tell where it lay. Even if she could have seen anything of the kind, there was no landmark on the desolate level waste between it and the homestead. She, however, remembered that she had one guide.

Hastings and his hired man had recently hauled in a great many loads of birch logs, and as they had made a well-worn trail it seemed to her just possible that she might trace it back to the bluff. No great weight of snow had fallen yet.

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

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

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

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

"Turn the team," he said.

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

"A small birch I was chopping fell on me," he said. "I don't know whether it smashed my ankle, or whether I twisted it wriggling clear—the thing pinned me down. It is badly hurt anyway."

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

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

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

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

At last, however, a dim mass crept out of the white haze ahead, and a moment later a man laid hold of her. The man told her that Mrs. Hastings was with him, and that the homestead was close at hand. Agatha learned afterwards that they had reached the house a short time previously and had immediately set out in search of her and Hastings.

She floundered on beside the horses, with another team dimly visible in front of her, until a faint ray of light streamed out into the snow. Then the team stopped, and she had only a hazy recollection of staggering into a lighted room in the homestead and sinking into a chair. What they did with Hastings she did not know, but Mrs. Hastings, who went with her to her room, kissed her before she left her.

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

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

"You have been to Winnipeg?" she asked.

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

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

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

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

"I think I'll go along for a smoke," he observed with evident impatience to leave them, and he retired precipitately.

Mrs. Hastings looked after him, and laughed in a manner that caused Sally to wince.

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

She moved away, and Agatha, who sat down opposite Sally, looked at her questioningly.

"Well?" she said.

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

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

Sally considered this statement for a moment or two before she looked up again.

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

Agatha smiled. "I can do that willingly," she said.

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

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

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

Sally turned her face away, for Agatha had made her meaning perfectly plain. Somewhat to Sally's astonishment, she showed no sign of resentment.

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

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

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

Agatha started at this statement, for she realized that part of it was certainly true, and she could admit the possibility of all of it being a fact. Gregory might possess a few good qualities that she had never discovered!

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

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

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

"Yes," she replied presently. "I am glad you look at it that way, Sally."

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

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

Her face asked the question that was in her heart.

"Harry Wyllard," announced Sally.

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

"I think you can count on that," replied Agatha with a smile, as she rose to rejoin Mrs. Hastings.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE LANDING

The ice among the inlets on the American side of the North Pacific broke up unusually early when spring came round again, and several weeks before Wyllard had expected it the Selache floated clear. The crew had suffered little during the bitter winter, for Dampier had kept the men busy splicing gear and patching sails, and they had fitted the schooner with a new mainmast hewn out of a small cedar. None of the sailors had been trained as carpenters, but men who keep the sea for months in small vessels are necessarily handy at repairs, and they had all used ax and saw to some purpose in their time.

Wyllard was satisfied when they thrashed the Selache out of the inlet under whole mainsail in a fresh breeze, and when evening came he sat smoking near the wheel. He was in a contemplative mood as the climbing forests and snow-clad heights dropped back astern. He wondered what his friends were doing upon the prairie, and whether Agatha had married Gregory yet. It seemed to him that it was, at least, possible that Agatha was married, for she was one to keep a promise, and it was difficult to believe that Gregory would fail to press his claim. Wyllard's face grew grim as he thought of it, though this was a thing he had done more or less constantly during the winter. He fancied that he might have ousted Gregory if he had remained at the Range, for perhaps unconsciously Agatha had shown him that she was not quite indifferent to him; but that would have been to involve her in a breach of faith which she would probably always have looked back on with regret. In any case he could not have stayed to press his suit. He knew that he would never forget her, but it was not impossible that she might forget him. He realized also, though this was not by comparison a matter of great consequence, that the Range was scarcely likely to prosper under Gregory's management, but that could not be helped, and after all he owed Gregory something. It never occurred to him that he was doing an extravagant thing in setting out upon the search that he had undertaken. He felt that the obligation was laid upon him, and, being what he was, he could not shrink from it.

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

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

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

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

He looked at Charly, who acquiesced.

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

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

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

"You'll head north?"

"That's my intention."

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

They agreed to that, and when next morning a little breeze came out of the creeping haze, they sailed the Selache slowly shorewards among the drifting ice until, at nightfall, an apparently impenetrable barrier stretched gleaming faintly ahead of them. Wyllard turned in soon afterwards and slept soundly. All his preparations had been made during the winter and there was no occasion for new plans. When morning broke he breakfasted before he went out on deck. The boat was already packed with provisions, sleeping-bags, a tent, and two light sled frames, on one of which it seemed possible that they might haul her a few miles. She was very light and small, and had been built for such a purpose as they had in view.

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

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

Wyllard smiled, and Dampier made a forceful gesture.

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

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

Dampier, who made no further comment, bade them swing the boat over, and when she lay heaving beneath the rail Wyllard and Charly and one Indian dropped into her. It was only a preliminary search they were about to engage in, for they had decided that if they found nothing they would afterwards push further north or inland when they had supplied themselves with fresh stores from the schooner.

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

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

"It's a sure thing we can't get out there," Charly observed.

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

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

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

It was evident that the wind was freshening, and at times a deluge of icy water slopped in over the gunwale. The men were hampered by their furs, and the stores lying about their feet.

The perspiration dripped from Wyllard when they approached a ragged, jutting point. It did not seem advisable to attempt a landing on that side of it, and when a little snow began to fall he looked at his companions.

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

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

"We'll pull around the point first, anyway," he decided.

A shower of fine snow that blotted out the schooner broke upon them, and the work was arduous. They were pulling to windward now, and it was necessary to watch the seas that ranged up ahead and to handle the boat circumspectly while the freshening breeze blew the spray over them. They had to fight for every fathom, and once or twice the little craft nearly rolled over with them. It became apparent by degrees that, as they could not have reached the schooner had they attempted it, they were pulling for their lives, and that the one way of escape open to them was to find an egress of some kind around the point, the ragged tongue of which was horribly close to lee of them. When the snow cleared for a minute or two, they saw that Dampier had driven the Selache further off the ice. The schooner was hove to now, and there was a black figure high up in her shrouds.

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

As Wyllard, who seized one sled frame, jumped, the disabled boat rolled over. He landed on his hands and knees, but in another moment he was on his feet, and he and the Indian clutched at Charly, who drove towards them amid a long wash of foam. They dragged him clear, and as he stood up dripping without his cap a sudden haze of snow whirled about them. There was no sign of the schooner, and they could scarcely see the broken ice some sixty yards away. They had made the landing, wet through, with about half their stores, and it was evident that their boat would not carry them across the narrowest lane of water, even if they could have recovered her. The sea rumbled along the edge of the ice, and they could not tell whether the frozen wall extended as far as the beach. They looked at one another until Wyllard spoke.

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

It was a relief to load the sled, and when that was done they put themselves into the hide traces and set off across the ice. Their traveling was arduous work apart from the hauling of the load, for the ice was rough and broken, and covered for the most part with softening snow. They had only gum-boots with soft hide moccasins under them, for snow-shoes are used only in Eastern Canada, and it takes one a long while to learn to walk on them.

Sometimes the three men sank almost knee-deep, sometimes they slipped and scrambled on uncovered ledges, but they pushed on with the sled bouncing and sliding unevenly behind them, until the afternoon had almost gone.

They set up the wet tent behind a hummock, and crouched inside it upon a ground-sheet, while Charly boiled a kettle on the little oil blast stove. The wind hurled the snow upon the straining canvas, which stood the buffeting. When they had eaten a simple meal Charly put the stove out and the darkness was not broken except when one of them struck a match to light his pipe. They had but one strip of rubber sheeting between them and the snow, for the water had gotten into the sleeping bags. Their clothes dried upon them with the heat of their bodies. They said nothing for a while, and Wyllard was half asleep when Charly spoke.

"I've been thinking about that boat," he remarked. "Though I don't know that we could have done it, we ought to have tried to pull her out."

"Why?" asked Wyllard. "She'd have been all to pieces, anyway.

"I'm figuring it out like this. If Dampier wasn't up in the shrouds when we made the landing he'd sent somebody. We could see him up against the sky, but we'd be much less clear to him low down with the ice and the surf about us. Besides, it was snowing quite fast then. Well, I don't know what Dampier saw, but I guess he'd have made out that we hadn't hauled the boat up, anyway. The trouble is that with the wind freshening and it getting thick he'd have to thrash the schooner out and lie to until it cleared. When he runs in again it's quite likely that he'll find the boat and an oar or two. Seems to me that's going to worry him considerable."

Wyllard, drowsy as he was, agreed with this view of the matter. He realized that it would have been quite impossible for Dampier to send them any assistance, and it was merely a question whether they should retrace their steps to the edge of the ice next morning and make him some signal. Against this there was the strong probability that he would not run in, if the gale and snow continued, and the fact that it was desirable to make the beach as soon as possible in case the ice broke up before they reached it. What was rather more to the purpose, Wyllard was quietly determined on pushing on.

"It can't be helped," he said simply. "We'll start for the beach as soon as it's daylight."

Charly made no answer, and the brawny, dark-skinned Siwash, who spoke English reasonably well, merely grunted. Unless it seemed necessary, he seldom said anything at all. Bred to the sea, and living on the seal and salmon, an additional hazard or two or an extra strain on his tough body did not count for much with him. He had been accustomed to sleep wet through with icy water, and to crouch for hours with numbed hands clenched on the steering-paddle while the long sea canoe scudded furiously over the big combers before bitter gale or driving snow. Wyllard, who rolled over, pulled a wet sleeping-bag across him, and after that there was silence in the little rocking tent.

* * * * *

Charly's deductions had been proved correct, for when the breeze freshened Dampier climbed into the shrouds. He had noticed the ominous blackness to windward, and he knew what it meant. That was why he had hauled down a reef in the schooner's mainsail, and now kept the vessel out a little from the ice. As the light faded he found it very difficult to see the boat against the white wash of the seas that recoiled from the ice, but when the snow was whirling about him he decided that she was in some peril unless her crew could pull her around the point. It was evident that this would be a difficult matter, though he had only an occasional glimpse of her now. He waved an arm to the helmsman, who understood that he was to run the schooner in. There was a rattle of blocks as the booms swung out, and as the Selache sped away before the rapidly freshening breeze it seemed to Dampier that he saw the boat hurled upon the ice. A blinding haze of snow suddenly shut out everything, and the skipper hastened down to the deck. He stood beside the wheel for several minutes. Gazing forward, he could see nothing except the filmy whiteness and the tops of the seas that had steadily been getting steeper. The schooner was driving furiously down upon the ice, but it was evident that to send Wyllard any assistance was utterly beyond his power. He could have hove to the schooner while he got the bigger boat over, and two men might have pulled towards the ice with the breeze astern of them, but it was perfectly clear that they could have neither made a landing nor have pulled her back again. It was also uncertain whether he and the other man could have brought the schooner round or have gotten more sail off her. He stood still until they heard the wash of the sea upon the ice close to lee of them, and then it was a hard-clenched hand he raised in sign to the helmsman.

"On the wind! Haul lee sheets!" he commanded.

The Selache came round a little, heading off the ice, and when she drove away with the foam seething white beneath one depressed rail and the spray whirling high about her plunging bows, there was a tense look in the white men's faces as they gazed into the thickening white haze to lee of her. They thrashed her out until Dampier decided that there was sufficient water between him and the ice, and then stripped most of the sail off her, and she lay to until next morning, when they once more got sail on her and ran in again. The breeze had fallen a little, it was rather clearer, and they picked up the point, though it had somewhat changed its shape. They got a boat over, and the two men who went off in her found a few broken planks, a couple of oars, and Charly's cap washing up and down in the surf. They had very little doubt as to what that meant.



CHAPTER XXV

NEWS OF DISASTER

When the boat reached the schooner Dampier went off with one of the men, and with difficulty contrived to make a landing on the ice only to find it covered with a trackless sheet of slushy snow. Though Dampier floundered shorewards a mile or two, there was nothing except the shattered boat to suggest what had befallen Wyllard and his companions. The skipper, who retraced his steps with a heavy heart, retained little hope of seeing them again. Dampier waited two days until a strong breeze blew him off the ice, which was rapidly breaking up, and he then stood out for the open sea, where he hove the Selache to for a week or so. After that he proceeded northward to the inlet Wyllard and he had agreed to.

Dampier was convinced that this was useless, but as the opening was almost clear of ice he sailed the schooner in, and spent a week or two scouring the surrounding country. He found it a desolation, still partly covered with slushy snow, out of which ridges of volcanic rock rose here and there. On two of these spots a couple of days' march from the schooner, he made a depot of provisions, and piled a heap of stones beside them. At times, when it was clear, he could see the top of a great range high up against the western sky, but those times were rare. For the most part, the wilderness was swept by rain or wrapped in clammy fog.

There was, however, no sign of Wyllard, and at last Dampier, coming back jaded and dejected from another fruitless search, after the time agreed upon had expired, shut himself up alone for a couple of hours in the little cabin. He was certain now that Wyllard and his companions had been drowned while attempting to make a landing on the ice, since they would have joined him at the inlet as arranged had this not been the case. The distance was by no means great, and there were no Russian settlements on that part of the coast. The skipper sat very still with a clenched hand upon the little table, balancing conjecture against conjecture, and then regretfully decided that there was only one course open to him. It was dark when he went up on deck again, but the men were sitting smoking about the windlass forward.

"You can heave some of that cable in, boys," he announced. "We'll clear out for Vancouver at sun-up."

The men said nothing, but they shipped the levers, and Dampier went back to the cabin, for the clank of the windlass and the ringing of the cable jarred upon him.

Early next morning the Selache stood out to sea, and once they had left behind them the fog and rain near the coast, she carried fine weather with her across the Pacific. On reaching Vancouver, Dampier had some trouble with the authorities, to whom it was necessary to report the drowning of three of his crew, but he was more fortunate than he expected, and after placing the schooner for sale with a broker, he left the city one evening on the Atlantic train. Three days later he was driving across the prairie towards the Hastings homestead. The members were sitting together in the big general room after supper, when the wagon Dampier had hired swung into sight over the crest of a hill.

It was a still, hot evening, and, as the windows were open wide, a faint beat of hoofs came up across the tall wheat and dusty prairie before the wagon topped the rise. Hastings, who sat in a cane chair near the window, with his pipe in his hand, looked up as he heard it.

"Somebody driving in," he remarked. "I shouldn't be astonished if it's Gregory. He talked about coming over the last time I saw him."

"If he wants to talk about a deal in wheat, he can stay away," said Mrs. Hastings sharply. "If all one hears is true, he has lost quite a few of Harry's dollars on the market lately."

Hastings looked troubled at this. "I'd sooner think it was his own money he'd thrown away."

"That's quite out of the question. He hasn't any."

"Well," said Hastings, with an air of reflection, "I'll get Sproatly to make inquiries. He'll probably be along with Winifred this evening, and if he finds that Gregory is getting in rather deep I'll have a word or two with him. I can't have him wasting Harry's money, and, as one of the executors, I have a right to protest."

Agatha started at the last word. It had an ominous ring, and she fancied that Hastings had noticed the effect on her, for he glanced at her curiously. Turning from him, she rose and walked to the window.

The wheat stretched across the foreground, tall and darkly green, and beyond it the white grass ran back to the hill, which cut sharply against a red and smoky glow. The sun had gone down some time before, and there was an exhilarating coolness in the air. Somehow the sight reminded her of another evening, when she had looked out across the prairie from a seat at Wyllard's table. Almost a year had passed since then.

The wagon drew nearer down the long slope of the hill, and the beat of hoofs that grew steadily louder in a sharp staccato made the memories clearer. She had heard Dampier riding in the night Wyllard had received his summons, and now she wondered who the approaching stranger was, and what his business could be. She did not know why, but she thought it was not Gregory.

Presently Hastings looked round again. "It's the team Bramfield hires out at the settlement," he said. "None of our friends would get him to drive them in. There seem to be two men in the wagon. Bramfield will be one. I can't make out the other."

Mrs. Hastings, who was evidently becoming curious about the unexpected guest, went to his side, and they stood watching the wagon until Agatha made an abrupt movement.

"It's Captain Dampier!" she exclaimed with foreboding in her voice.

She stood tensely still, with lips slightly parted, and a strained look in her eyes, while Hastings gazed at the wagon for another moment or two.

"Yes," he said, and his voice was harsh, "it's Dampier. The other man's surely Bramfield. Harry's not with him."

He glanced at Agatha, who turned away, and sat down in the nearest chair. She made no comment, and there was an oppressive silence, through which the beat of hoofs and rattle of wheels rang more distinctly.

It seemed a long time before Dampier came in. He shook hands with Agatha and Mrs. Hastings diffidently.

"You remember me?" he asked.

"Of course," answered Mrs. Hastings, with impatience in her tone. "Where's Harry?"

The skipper spread a hard hand out, and sat down heavily.

"That," he said, "is what I have to tell you. He asked me to."

"He asked you to?" questioned Agatha, and though her voice was strained there was relief in it.

Dampier made a gesture, which seemed to beseech her patience.

"Yes," he said, "if—anything went wrong—he told me I was to come here to Mrs. Hastings."

Agatha turned her head away, but Mrs. Hastings saw that she caught her breath before she cried:

"Then something has gone wrong!"

"About as wrong as it could." Dampier met her gaze gravely. "Wyllard and two other men are drowned."

He paused as if watching for words that might soften the dire meaning of his message, and Mrs. Hastings saw Agatha shiver. The girl turned slowly around with a drawn white face. It was, however, Hastings who spoke, almost sternly.

"Go on," he said.

"I'm to tell you all?"

This time it was Agatha who broke in.

"Yes," she replied, with a steadiness that struck the others as being strained and unnatural, "you must tell us all."

Dampier, who appeared to shrink from his task, began awkwardly, but he gained coherence and force of expression as he proceeded. He made them understand something of the grim resolution which had animated Wyllard. He pictured, in terse seaman's words, the little schooner plunging to windward over long phalanxes of icy seas, or crawling white with snow through the blinding fog. His listeners saw the big combers tumbling ready to break short upon the dipping bows, and half-frozen men struggling for dear life with folds of madly thrashing sail. The pictures were necessarily somewhat blurred and hazy, for after all only an epic poet could fittingly describe the things that must be done and borne at sea, and epic poets are not bred in the forecastle. When he reached the last scene he gained dramatic power, and Agatha's face grew white and tense. She saw the dim figures pulling the boat through the flying spray beneath the wall of ice.