The tug was close abreast of the ship's forecastle now, evidently waiting with engines stopped until the vessel should pass her. The crew was still heaving in the cable or loosing the top-gallants, and froth boiled almost level with the depressed rail. Black was a poor swimmer, but he could keep his head above water for a considerable time. If the tug did not start her engines within the next few seconds she must drive close down on him. Otherwise—but filled with the hope of escape and the lust for revenge Black was willing to take the risk.

He hooked one knee around the brace, gripped it between his ankles and slackened the grip of his hands. The topsails slid away from him, the spray rushed up below, his feet struck the rail, and the next moment he was down in utter blackness and conscious of a shock of icy cold water. He rose gasping and swung around, buffeted in the vessel's eddying wake. There was no shouting on board her, and, with a choking cry, he struck out for the black shape of the tug, now only a short distance away. Somebody heard and flung down a line. He clutched at it and, by good fortune, grasped it. Head downward he was drawn on board by the aid of a long boathook, and hauled, dripping, before the skipper.

"Did you fall or jump in?" asked the skipper.

"I jumped," confessed Black, putting a bold face on it, and the master of the towboat laughed.

"Shanghaied, I guess!" he said. "Well, I don't blame you for showing your grit. The master of that lumber wagon is a blame avaricious insect! He beat us down until all we got out of him will hardly pay for the coal we used—that's what he did. So if you slip ashore quietly when we tie up, he'll think you pitched over making sail, and I'll keep my mouth shut."

Accordingly it happened that next morning Black, who had left the wooden city before daylight to tramp back to the bush, sat down to consider his next move.

"There's one thing tolerably certain, Black Christy's drowned, and he'll just stop drowned until it suits him," he decided. "Next, though he's not over fond of it, there's lots of work for a good carpenter in this country and newspapers are cheap. So when it's worth his while to strike in with the Thurston Company and get even with the other side he'll probably hear of it."

He laughed a little as he once more read the message on a strip of pulpy paper somebody had slipped into his pocket.

"You are going to China for your health, and you had better stop there if you want to keep clear of trouble."

Black Christy got upon his feet again and departed into the bush, where he wandered for several weeks, building fences and splitting shingles for the ranchers in return for food and shelter, until he found work and wages at a saw-mill.

Shortly after he was employed at the mill, the director who held Leslie's receipt sat in his handsome offices with the Englishman. A newspaper lay open on the table before him, and the director smiled as he read, "Ship, Maria Carmony, timber laden for China, meeting continuous headwinds after sailing from this port, put into Cosechas, Cal., for shelter, and her master reported the loss of a seaman when making sail in the Straits of San Juan. The man's name was T. Slater, and must have been a stranger, as nobody appears to have known him in this city."

"Those fellows haven't managed it badly," he commented. "Anyway, there's an end of him."

"They told me they had some trouble over it, and I gave them fifty dollars extra," said Leslie. "They used the hint you mentioned—said it worked well. But the two men are always likely to turn up, unfortunately."

"It wouldn't count," the other answered confidently. "You will have to bluff them off if they do. Deny the whole thing—nobody would believe them—it's quite easy. It would have been different with that confounded Black, for he would have had Thurston's testimony. The joke of the whole thing is, that although he knew I held evidence which would likely hang him with a jury of miners, it's tolerably certain Black never did the thing he was wanted for."

Thus, the two parties interested remained contented, and only Thurston was left bewildered and furious at the loss of a witness who might be valuable to him. Moreover, the destruction of machinery which, having been made specially for Thurston, in England, could not be replaced for months. And not once did it ever occur to his subordinate, English Jim, that he himself had furnished the clue which led to the abduction of the missing man.



CHAPTER XX

UNDER THE STANLEY PINES

It was a pleasant afternoon when Millicent Leslie stood in the portico of her villa, which looked upon the inlet from a sunny ridge just outside Vancouver. Like the other residences scattered about, the dwelling quaintly suggested a doll's house—it was so diminutively pretty with its carved veranda, bright green lattices, and spotless white paint picked out with shades of paler green and yellow. Flowers filled tiny borders, and behind the house small firs, spared by the ax, stood rigid and somber. With clear sunshine heating upon it and the blue waters sparkling close below, the tiny villa was so daintily attractive that one might almost suppose its inhabitants could carry neither care nor evil humor across its threshold, but there was disgust and weariness in Millicent's eyes as she glanced from the little pony-carriage waiting at the gate to her husband leaning against a pillar.

Leslie was evidently in a complacent frame of mind, and he did not notice his wife's expression. There was a smile upon his puffy face which suggested pride of possession. It was justifiable, for Mrs. Leslie was still a distinctly handsome woman, and she knew how to dress herself.

"You will meet very few women who excel you, and the team is unique," he remarked exultantly. "Drive around by some of the big stores and let folks see you before you turn into the park. Since that affair of Thurston's I am almost beginning to grow proud of you."

"Isn't it somewhat late in the day?" was the answer, and Millicent's tone was chilly. "If you had wished to pay me a compliment that was not intended ironically, it would have been wiser to omit all reference to the subject you mentioned. It is done now—and heaven knows why I told you—but I can't thank you for reminding me of a deed I am ashamed of. Further, I understood the ponies were for my pleasure, and I have stooped far enough in your interest without displaying myself as an advertisement of a prosperity which does not exist."

Leslie laughed unpleasantly, noticing the flash in the speaker's eyes before he rejoined: "Perhaps it is tardy praise I give you, but regarding your last remark, to pretend you have achieved prosperity is, so far as I can see, the one way to attain it, and I have a promising scheme in view. It is not a particularly pleasant part to play, and there was a time when it appeared very improbable that either of us would be forced, as you say, to stoop to it. Neither was it my ambition which brought about the necessity. As to the ponies—I had fancied they might do their part, too, but they are a reward for services rendered in finding me a clue to the missing-man mystery. Nobody need know that they're not quite our own. Now you have got them, isn't it slightly unfair to blame me because you were willing to earn them?"

"I suppose so," admitted Millicent. "Still, I can't help remarking that you take the man's usual part of blaming the woman for whatever happens. To-day I will not drive through the city, but straight into the park."

Leslie said nothing further, but followed his wife to the gate. On his way to his office, he turned and looked after her with a frown as she rattled her team along the uneven road. She was a vain and covetous woman with a bias towards intrigue, but there had been times since her marriage when she despised herself, and as a natural consequence blamed her husband. Sometimes she hated Thurston, also, though more often she was sensible of vague regrets, and grew morbid thinking of what might have been. Now she flushed a little as she glanced at the ponies and remembered that they were the price of treachery. The animals were innocent, but she found satisfaction in making them feel the sting of the whip.

She looked back at the city.

It rose in terraces above the broad inlet—a maze of wooden buildings, giving place to stone. Over its streets hung a wire network, raised high on lofty poles, which would have destroyed the beauty of a much fairer city. Back of the city rose the somber forest over which at intervals towered the blasted skeleton of some gigantic pine.

Millicent felt that she detested both the city, with its crude mingling of primitive simplicity and Western luxury, and the life she lived in it. It was a life of pretense and struggle, in which she suffered bitter mortifications daily. Presently she reined the team in to a walk as she drove under the cool shade of the primeval forest which, with a wisdom not common in the West, the inhabitants of Vancouver have left unspoiled as Nature. A few drives have been cut through the trees and between the long rows of giant trunks she could catch at intervals the silver shimmer of the Straits. In this park there was only restful shadow. Its silence was intensified by the soft thud of hoofs. A dim perspective of tremendous trees whose great branches interlocked, forming arches for the roof of somber green very far above, lured her on.

Millicent felt the spell of the silence and sighed remembering how the lover whom she had discarded once pleaded that she would help him in a life of healthful labor. She regretted that she had not consented to flee with him to the new country. Now she was tied to a man she despised, and who had put her, so she considered, to open shame. She could not help comparing his weak, greedy, yet venomous nature, with the other's courage, clean purpose and transparent honesty.

"I was a fool, ten times a fool; but it is too late," she told herself, and then tightening her grip on the reins she started with surprise. The man to whom her thoughts had strayed was leaning against a hemlock with his eyes fixed on her face. It was the first time they had met since she played the part of Delilah, and, in spite of her customary self-command, Millicent betrayed her agitation. A softer mood was upon her and she had the grace to be ashamed. Still, it appeared desirable to discover whether he suspected her.

"I was quite startled to see you, Geoffrey, but I am very glad. It is almost too hot for walking. Won't you let me drive you?" she said with flurried haste.

If Geoffrey hesitated Millicent noticed no sign of it beyond that he was slow in answering. He was conscious that Mrs. Leslie looked just then a singularly attractive companion, but she was the wife of another man, and, of late, he had felt a vague alarm at the confidences she seemed inclined to exchange with him. Nevertheless, he could find no excuse at the moment which would not suggest a desire to avoid her, and with a word of thanks he took his place at her side.

"I came down to consult my friend, Mr. Thomas Savine, on business," he explained. "I had one or two other matters to attend to, and promised to overtake him and his wife during their stroll. I must have missed them. What a pretty team! Have you had the ponies long?"

Millicent's well-gloved fingers closed somewhat viciously upon the whip, for the casual question was unfortunate, but she smiled as she answered and she chatted gayly until, in an interlude, Thurston felt prompted to say:

"Coincidences are sometimes striking, are they not? You remember, the last time we met, suggesting that I was fortunate in having no enemies among the mountains?"

"Yes," she replied, shrinking a little, "I do—but do you know that it makes one shiver to talk about glaciers and snow on such a perfect day."

A man of keener perceptions, reading the speaker's face, would have changed the subject at once, and Millicent had earned his tactful consideration. It was a good impulse which prompted her to place herself beyond the reach of further temptation. Geoffrey, however, was unobservant that afternoon.

"I am certainly tired of glaciers and snow and other unpleasant things myself, and was merely going to say that, shortly after I last talked with you, I discovered another instance of an unknown enemy's ingenuity," he went on. "A wagon we had chartered upset down a steep ravine, and several costly pieces of machinery I had brought out from England, and can hardly replace, were smashed to pieces."

"Ah!" responded Millicent, staring straight before her. "What a pity! Still accidents of that description must be fairly common where the mountain roads are bad?"

"They are; but this was not an accident. We found that somebody had pulled out the cotter or iron pin which held the wagon wheel on."

"Did any of your own men do it?" Millicent inquired, concealing her eagerness, and Thurston answered with pride in his tone:

"My own men risk their lives almost every day in my service. There is not one among them capable of treachery—now. We made tolerably certain it was the work of two strangers, who hung about the neighboring settlement and disappeared immediately after the accident."

Millicent's eyes flashed, her white teeth were set together, and, filled with hot indignation against her husband, she lashed the ponies viciously. There were several reasons for what she had done, including a dislike to Miss Savine, but perhaps the greatest was the sordid fear of poverty. Now she saw that her husband had tricked her. She had stooped to save his position and not to enable him to work further injury for Thurston. The innocent ponies were Leslie's gift, and the smart of the lash she drew across their sleek backs appeared vicarious punishment.

"Have I displeased you?" Geoffrey asked.

"No," replied Millicent. "Displeased me! How could I resent anything you might either say or do? Have I not heaped injury upon you?"

She turned to gaze straight at him with a curious glitter in her eyes. Thurston, bewildered by it and by the traces of ill-suppressed passion in her voice, grew distinctly uneasy. He was glad that one of the ponies showed signs of growing restive under its punishment.

"Steady, Millicent! They're a handsome pair, but not far off bolting, and there's no parapet to yonder bridge," he cautioned.

In place of an answer the woman again flicked one of the beasts viciously with the whip, and, next moment, the light vehicle lurched forward with a whir of gravel hurled up by the wheels. The team had certainly shied, and the road curved sharply to the unguarded bridge over a little creek.

"This is my business," declared Geoffrey, wrenching the reins from her grasp. "Sit well back, throw the whip down and clutch the rail fast." Then he stood upright grasping the lines in his hard hands. It was, however, evident that he could not steer the ponies around the bend, and the fall to the rocks beneath the bridge might mean death.

"Hold fast for your life," he shouted, and let the team run straight on. There was a heavy shock as the light wheels struck a fallen branch on leaving the graded road. The vehicle lurched, and Millicent, whose eyes were wide with terror, screamed faintly. Geoffrey still stood upright driving the team straight ahead down a more open glade of the forest. He knew that the stems of the fern and the soft ground beneath would soon bring them to a standstill if they did not strike a tree-trunk first.

The going was heavy, and with a plunge or two, the ponies stopped on the edge of a thicket. Geoffrey, alighting, soothed the trembling creatures with some difficulty, led them back to the road, and, taking his place again, turned towards Millicent. It appeared necessary that he should soothe her, too, for, though generally a self-possessed person, the emotions of the last few minutes had proved too much for her. She had suffered from remorse, disgust with herself, rage against her husband, and to these there had also been added the fear of sudden death.

"It ended better than it might have done," said Geoffrey, awkwardly. "Very sorry, but you must really be careful in using the whip to the ponies. Shall I get down and bring you some water, Millicent? You look faint. The fright has made you ill."

"No," Millicent denied. "I am not ill; only startled a little—and very grateful." Instinctively, she moved a little nearer him when Geoffrey handed her the reins again. He bent his head and smiled reassuringly. Millicent was white in the face, and shivered a little—she was also very pretty, and it would have been unkind not to try to comfort her. Whether it was love of power, dislike to her husband, or perhaps something more than this, even the woman was not then sure, but she took full advantage of the position, and the ponies walked undirected, while Geoffrey essayed to chase away her fears. He bent his head lower towards her, and Millicent smiled at him with apparently shy gratitude.

Lifting his eyes a moment, Geoffrey set his teeth as he met the coldly indifferent gaze of Helen, who came towards them in company with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Savine. Millicent also saw the three Savines, and, either tempted by jealousy of the girl or by mere vanity, managed to convey a subtle expression of triumph in her smile of greeting. Possibly neither Thomas Savine nor Geoffrey would have understood the meaning of the smile had they seen it, but Helen read it, and it was with the very faintest bend of her head that she acknowledged Thurston's salutation.

Geoffrey was silent after they had driven by, but Millicent, who seemed to recover her spirits, chatted gayly and even said flattering things of Miss Savine.

Meantime Helen felt confused, hurt and angry. It was true that she had rejected Thurston's suit, but she had found his loyalty pleasant, and had believed implicitly in his rectitude. Now a hot color rose to her temples as she remembered that it was the second time she had seen him under circumstances which suggested that he had transferred the homage offered her to a married woman. She felt the insult as keenly as if he had struck her. The Dominion had not progressed so far in one direction as the great republic to the south of it, neither are friendships or flirtations of the kind looked upon as leniently as they are in tropical colonies, and there was a good deal of the Puritan in Helen Savine.

"Well, I'm—just rattled. That's Mrs. Leslie!" remarked Thomas Savine. "Thurston goes straight and steady, but what in the name of——"

Mrs. Savine, whose one weakness was medicine, flashed a warning glance at him, and hastened to answer, perhaps for the benefit of Helen who came up just then.

"There is not a straighter man in the Dominion, and one could stake their last cent on the honor of Geoffrey Thurston," she declared. "From several things I've heard, I've settled that's just a dangerous woman."

Helen heard, and, knowing her friendship for the young engineer, guessed her aunt's motive. The explanation, in any case, would not have improved the position much, for if the woman were utterly unprincipled, which she could well believe, why should the man who had, of his own will, pledged himself to her?—but she flushed again as she refused to follow that line of thought further. Nevertheless, she clenched a little hand in a manner that boded ill for Thurston when next he sought speech with her. Afterwards she endeavored to treat the incident with complete indifference, and succeeded in deceiving her uncle only, for in spite of her efforts, her face and carriage expressed outraged dignity. Her aunt was not in the least deceived, and her eyes twinkled now and then as she chattered on diverse topics, while the party drove leisurely towards the city.

When Leslie returned home from his office he found his wife awaiting him with the disdainful look upon her face which he had learned to hate.

"What's the matter now, Millicent? Has something upset your usually pacific temper?" he asked with a sneer.

"Yes," was the direct answer. "When you last asked my assistance you, as usual, lied to me. I helped you to trace your—your confederate, because you told me it was the only way to escape ruin. For once I believed you, which was blindly foolish of me. I met Mr. Thurston and learned from him how somebody had plotted to destroy his machinery. He did not know it was you, and I very nearly told him."

"Don't be a fool, Millicent," Leslie admonished. "I'm sick of these displays of temper—they don't become you. I tell you I plotted nothing except to get my man into my own hands again. The other rascals exceeded their orders on their own responsibility. Oh, you would wear out any poor man's patience! Folks in my position don't do such childish things as hire people to upset wagons loaded with machinery."

"I do not believe you," replied Millicent, and Leslie laughed ironically.

"I don't know that it greatly matters whether you do or not. Have you any more such dutiful things to say?"

"Just this. One hears of honor among thieves, and it is evident you cannot rise even to that. You have once more tricked me, and henceforward I warn you that you must carry on your work in your own way. Further, if I hear of any more plotting to do Thurston injury, I shall at once inform him."

"Then," Leslie gripped her arm until his fingers left their mark on the soft white flesh, "I warn you that it will be so much the worse for you. Good heavens, why don't you—but go, and don't tempt me to say what I feel greatly tempted to."

Millicent shook off his grasp, moved slowly away, turning to fling back a bitter answer from the half-opened door.

"Confound her!" said Leslie, refilling the glass upon the table. "Now, what the devil tempted me to ruin all my prospects by marrying that woman?"



CHAPTER XXI

REPARATION

"You will have to go," said Henry Leslie, glancing sharply at his wife across the breakfast-table as he returned her an open letter which had lately arrived by the English mail. "I hardly know where to find the money for your passage out and home just now, and you will want new dresses—women always seem to. Still, we can't afford to miss an opportunity, and it may prove a good investment," he added, reflectively.

Millicent sighed as she took the letter, and, ignoring her husband's words, read it through again. It had been written by a relative, a member of the legal profession, and requested her to return at once to England. The stern old man, who had reared her, was slowly dying, and had expressed an urgent wish to see her.

"Isn't that the man who wanted you to marry Thurston, and when you disappointed him washed his hands of both of you?" Leslie inquired. "There were reasons why I hadn't the pleasure of duly making the acquaintance of your relatives, but I think you said he was tolerably wealthy, and, as he evidently desires a reconciliation, you must do your best to please him. Let me see. You might catch the next New York Cunarder or the Allan boat from Quebec."

Millicent looked up at him angrily. She was not wholly heartless, and her kinsman had not only provided for her after her parents died in financial difficulties, but in his own austere fashion he had been kind to her. Accordingly, her husband's comments jarred upon her.

"I should certainly go, even if I had to travel by Colonist car and steerage," she declared. "I should do so if there were no hope of financial benefit, which is, after all, very uncertain, for Anthony Thurston is not the man to change his mind when he has once come to a determination. The fact that he is dying and asks for me is sufficient—though it is perhaps useless to expect you to believe it."

"We must all die some day," was the abstracted answer. "Hardly an original observation, is it? But it would be folly to let such a chance pass, and I must try to spare you. If you really feel it, I sympathize with you, and had no intention of wounding your sensibilities, but as, unfortunately, circumstances force us to consider these questions practically, you will—well, you will do your best with the old man, Millicent. To put it so, you owe a duty to me."

Leslie and his wife had by this time learned to see each other's real self, naked and stripped of all disguise, and the sight was not calculated to inspire either with superfluous delicacy. The man, however, overlooked the fact that his partner in life still clung to a last grace of sentiment, and could, on occasion, deceive herself.

"I owe you a duty! How have you discharged yours to me?" she said, reproachfully. "Do not force me to oppose you, Harry, but if you are wise, go around to the depot and find out when the steamers sail."

"Yes, my dear," Leslie acquiesced with a smile, which he did not mean to be wholly ironical. "Would it be any use for me to say that I shall miss you?"

"No," answered Millicent, though she returned his smile. "You really would not expect me to believe you. Still, if only because of the rareness of such civility, I rather like to hear you say so."

Mrs. Leslie sailed in the first Cunarder, and duly arrived at a little station in the North of England where a dogcart was waiting to drive her to Crosbie Ghyll. She had known the man, who drove it long before, and he told her, with full details, how Anthony Thurston, having come down from an iron-working town to visit the owner of the dilapidated mansion had been wounded by a gun accident while shooting. The wound was not of itself serious, but the old man's health was failing, and he had not vitality enough to recover from the shock.

Meantime, while Millicent Leslie was driven across the bleak brown moorlands, Anthony Thurston lay in the great bare guest-chamber at Crosbie Ghyll. He had been a hard, determined man, a younger son who had made money in business, while his brothers died poor, clinging to the land, and it was with characteristic grimness that he was quietly awaiting his end. The narrow, deep-sunk window in front of him was open wide, though the evening breeze blew chilly from the fells, which rose blackly against an orange glow. Though he manifested no impatience, the sunset light beating in showed an expectant look in his eyes. A much younger man sat at a table close by and laid down the pen he held, when the other said:

"That will do, Halliday. Is there any sign of the dog-cart yet? You are sure she will come to-night?"

"There is a vehicle of some kind behind the larches, but I cannot see it clearly," was the answer. "You can rest satisfied, sir, for if Mrs. Leslie has missed the train, she will arrive early to-morrow."

"To-morrow may be too late," said the old man. "I do not feel well to-night. Yes, she will come. Millicent is like her father, and, though he ruined himself, it was not because he hadn't a keen eye for the main chance. Because I was a lonely man and because, in my struggling days her mother was kind to me, I was fond of her. You needn't be jealous, Halliday. You will have the winding up of my estate, and it won't affect your share."

There was a vein of misanthropic irony in most of what Anthony Thurston said, but the other man had the same blood in him, and answered quickly:

"My own business is flourishing, and I have tried to serve you hitherto because of the relationship. I have no other reason, sir."

"No," assented Thurston, with something approaching a laugh. "There is no doubt you are genuine. Millicent took after her father and, in spite of it, I was fond of her. Tell me again. Did you consider her happy when you saw her in Canada?"

"As I said before, it is a delicate question, but I did not think so. Her husband struck me as a particularly poor sample, sir."

"Ah! She married the rascal suddenly out of pique, perhaps, when Geoffrey left her. I could never quite get at the truth of that story, which, of course, was framed in the conventional way, but even now, though he's nearer of kin than Millicent, I can't quite forgive Geoffrey. You saw him, you said, on your last visit to those mines."

The speaker's tone was indifferent, but his eyes shoved keen interest, and Halliday answered:

"If ever the whole truth came out I don't think you would blame Geoffrey, sir. Individually, I would take his word against—well, against any woman's solemn declaration. Yes, I saw him. He was making a pretty fight single-handed against almost overwhelming natural difficulties."

"Why?" asked Anthony Thurston. "A woman out there, eh? Are you pleading his cause, Halliday? Remember, if you convince me, he may be another participant in the property."

"He did not explain all his motives to me, and nobody ever gained much by attempting to force a Thurston's confidence. If you were not my kinsman and were in better health I should feel tempted to recommend you to place your affairs in other hands. Confound the property!"

There was a curious cackle in the sick man's throat, and the flicker of a smile in his sunken eyes.

"I can believe it. You are tarred with the same brush as Geoffrey. The obstinate fool must go out there with a couple of hundred pounds or so, when he knew he had only to humor me by marrying Millicent and wait for prosperity. And yet, in one way, I'm glad he did. He never wrote me to apologize or explain—still, that's hardly surprising either. I don't know that any of us ever troubled much about other folks' opinions or listened to advice. Here am I, who might have lived another ten years, dying, because, when an officious keeper warned me, I went the opposite way. I hear wheels, Halliday."

"It is the dogcart," Halliday announced. "Yes—I see Mrs. Leslie."

"Thank God!" said the sick man. "Bring her here as soon as she's ready. Meantime, send in the doctor. I feel worse to-night."

The light was dying fast when Millicent Leslie came softly into the great bare room, and, for Anthony Thurston had paid for overtaxing his waning strength, her heart smote her as she looked upon him. She could recognize the stamp of fast approaching death. There was an unusual gentleness in his eyes, which brightened at her approach, and with the exception of Geoffrey, whose sympathy filled her with shame, it was long since anyone had looked upon her with genuine kindliness. So it was with real sorrow she knelt beside the bed and kissed him.

"I was shocked to hear of your accident, but it was some time ago, and you are recovering," she remarked, trying to speak hopefully, but with a catch in her breath.

"I am dying," was the answer, and Millicent sobbed when the withered fingers rested on her hair.

"I wanted to see you before I went. I was fond of you, Milly, and you—you and Geoffrey angered me. It was not your fault," the somewhat strained voice added wistfully. "He—I don't wish to hurt you, or hear the stereotyped version he of course endorsed. He left you?"

Millicent Leslie was not wholly evil. She had a softer side, and, in the moment of reconciliation, dreaded to inflict further pain upon one to whom she owed much. If the truth was not in her, there was one thing in her favor, so at least the afterwards tried to convince herself. Prompted by a desire to soothe a dying man's last hours, she voluntarily accepted a very unpleasant part. She was thankful her head was bent as she said: "It was perhaps my fault. I would not—I could not consent to humor him in what appeared a senseless project—and so Geoffrey went to Canada."

She felt the old man's hand move caressingly across her hair. "Poor Millicent," he sympathized. "And you chose another husband. Are you happy with him out there? But stay, it is twilight and the old place is gloomy. If you would like them, ask for candles. Geoffrey—Geoffrey left you!"

Millicent did not desire candles, but gently drew herself away. Anthony Thurston's tenderness had touched her, and, with sudden compunction, she remembered that she had deceived a dying man. He believed her, but she did not wish him to see her face. She drew a chair towards the bed, and for a moment looked about her, striving to collect her scattered thoughts. Framed by the stone-ribbed window, the afterglow still shimmered, a pale luminous green, and one star twinkled over the black shoulder of Crosbie Fell. Curlews called mournfully down in the misty mosses, and when she turned her head the sick man's face showed faintly livid against the darker coverings of the bed. For a moment she felt tempted to make full confession, or at least excuses for Geoffrey, but Anthony Thurston spoke again just then and the moment was lost.

"I asked are you happy in Canada, Millicent," he repeated, and there was command as well as kindness in his tone. Anthony Thurston, mine owner and iron works director, was dying, but he had long been a ruler of stiff-necked men, and the habit of authority still remained with him. It struck Millicent that he was in many ways very like Geoffrey.

"I am not," she admitted. "I would not have told you if you had not insisted. It is the result of my own folly, and there is no use complaining."

Anthony Thurston stretched out a thin, claw-like hand and laid it on one of her own. "Tell me," he said.

"We are poor. That is, my husband's position is precarious, and it is a constant struggle to live up to it."

"Then why do you try?"

Millicent sighed as she answered:

"It is, I believe, necessary or he would lose it, while he aims at obtaining sufficient influence to win him a connection, if he resumed his former land business."

"From what I know it is a rascally business; but there is more than this. My time is very short, Millicent, but it seems such a very little while since a bright-haired girl who atoned for another's injury sat upon my knee, and for the sake of those days I can still protect you. Your husband treats you ill?"

There was a vibration in the strained voice which more strongly reminded the listener of Geoffrey's, and awoke her bitterness against the man she had married. It was so long since she had taken a living soul into her confidence, that she answered impulsively: "There is no use hiding the truth from you. He does not treat me well."

Then she related the story of her married life, and Anthony Thurston listened gravely, comprehending more than she meant to tell him, for when she had finished he commented: "You have neither been over loyal nor over wise—too quick to see the present gain, blind to the greater one behind—but it is my part to help, not blame you, and I will try to do so. It is dark now. Please ask for my draught and the candles. Then I want you to tell me about Geoffrey. You have met him in Canada."

Millicent, retiring, stood for a few minutes looking down from a narrow window in the bare stone corridor on to the moor. There was no moon, but the night was luminous, for the stars twinkled with a windy glitter that was flung back by a neighboring tarn. The call of the curlew seemed more mournful, the crying of lapwing rose from the meadow land, and she started at a hollow hoot as an owl swept by on muffled wing. The night voices filled her with an eerie sensation—there was, she recollected, always something creepy about Crosbie Ghyll, and, for Millicent was superstitious, she shivered again at the reflection that she had cheated a dying man. But she could make partial reparation to the living at least, and when she came back with the candles there was resolve in her face.

"You asked me about Geoffrey. He has no reason to be ashamed of his record in Canada," she said. "I will tell you what I know from the beginning—and I hope I shall tell it well."

It was a relief to do so, and the story of Geoffrey's struggle and prospective triumph was a stirring one as it fell from the lips of the woman who had thrice wronged him. She guessed how her husband's employers had plotted, having gathered much from the talk of his guests, and the old man listened eagerly, until he struck the coverlet when she concluded. Grim satisfaction was stamped upon his twitching face.

"It is a brave story. I thank you, Millicent; you told it very well. Ay, the old blood tells—and I was proud of the lad. Went his own way in spite of me—he is my kinsman, what should I expect of him? Standing alone for a broken master, with cunning and wealth against him and his last dollar in the scheme! Quite in keeping with traditions, and there'll be broken crowns before they beat him down."

The dying man, who had fought perhaps as stubbornly all his life long, gasped once or twice before he added, "You must go now, Millicent. Send Halliday to me."

Millicent went out with a throbbing pulse and downcast eyes, and when the lawyer came in Thurston said: "Read over that partly completed will."

"Had you not better rest until to-morrow, sir?" was the answer. "Dr. Maltby warned you——"

"You ought to know by this time that I seldom take a warning, and to-morrow may be too late. Write, and write quickly. After payment of all bequests above, balance of real estate to yourself and Forsyth as trustees, to apply and use for the individual benefit of Millicent Leslie. If her husband lays hands upon it, I'll haunt you. You have power to nominate Geoffrey Thurston as your co-trustee. God knows what may happen, and her rascally husband may get himself shot by somebody he has swindled some day. What I wished for mightn't follow then? I'm paying you to make my will and not dictate to me. Repeat it as many times as may appear necessary to let my meaning show clearly through your legal phraseology."

"I have got it down, sir," the writer told him presently.

"Now, after deductions enumerated, all my floating investments in mines, stocks and shares to Geoffrey Thurston, to hold or sell as pleases him, unconditionally. Bequeathed in the hope that this will help him to confound his enemies."

It was written, signed and witnessed by Musker and the surgeon, then Anthony Thurston asked once more and very faintly for Millicent. He drew her down beside him and took her hand in his thin, gnarled one before he said:

"I have done my best for you, Milly—and again thank you for the story. After what Halliday said, it has helped to conquer an old bitterness, and—for my work is finished—I can die contented. I may be gone to-morrow, and my strength is spent. Good-by, Milly. God bless you!"

Millicent stooped and kissed him with a sense of shame. Before morning all power of speech or volition left Anthony Thurston, and twelve hours later he was dead.



CHAPTER XXII

A REPRIEVE

It was with a heavy heart that Geoffrey Thurston turned over the papers Thomas Savine spread out before him in the Vancouver offices.

"I'm almost scared to do any more figuring," said Savine. "Money is going to be uncommonly tight with us, and, to make things worse, I can neither realize nor borrow. My brother's investments are way below par now, and the first sign of any weakness would raise up an opposition that would finish us. I can't stay here forever, and poor Julius is steadily getting worse instead of better. Are you still certain you can get the work done before the winter's through?"

"Yes," asserted Geoffrey. "If I can get the machinery and sufficient men—which means money. There's a moderate fortune waiting us once we can run the water out of the valley, and it's worth a desperate effort to secure it."

"We have made a good many daring moves since my brother gave me his power of attorney, and I have sunk more of my own money than my partners, who have backed me pluckily, care about. Still, I can't see how I'm going to meet your estimate, nohow."

"You have just got to do it," Geoffrey insisted. "It is the part you chose. At my end, I'll stop for nothing short of manslaughter. We simply can't afford to be beaten, and we're not going to be."

"I hope not," and Thomas Savine sighed dubiously. "Your assurance is refreshing, Geoffrey, but I own up I can't see—well, we've done enough for one day. Come round and spend the evening with me. Mrs. Savine is anxious to see you."

Geoffrey hesitated for a few seconds, and Thomas Savine smiled at something which faintly amused him. Remembering Helen's freezing look and his occupation when she last saw him, Geoffrey felt that it might not be pleasant to meet her so soon. Then, because he was a proud man, he endeavored to accept the invitation with cordiality.

"I am glad you will come," said Thomas Savine, with a trace of the dry humor which occasionally characterized him.

Geoffrey, who felt that in this instance the pleasure was hardly mutual, and that Helen might not share it with her uncle, said nothing further on that subject, until Mrs. Savine met him in the hotel corridor. A friendship had grown up between them since the day Geoffrey endured the elixir, after mending the bicycle, and there was a mischievous amusement in the lady's eyes as she said; "My compliments, Geoffrey. You are a brave man."

"I don't deserve them, madam. Wherein lies the bravery? Being at present in perfect health, I have no cause to fear you."

Mrs. Savine laughed good-naturedly, then laid her hand upon his arm with a friendly gesture. "Sober earnest, I am glad you came. I believe in you, Geoffrey, and like to see a man show the grit that's in him."

"I am honored," returned Geoffrey, with a little bow. There was a grateful look in his brown eyes, which did not quail in the slightest under the lady's scrutiny.

In spite of her good-will, he, however, derived little pleasure from that evening of relaxation. Helen showed no open displeasure, but he was painfully conscious that what she had seen had been a shock to her. It was impossible for him to volunteer an explanation. He was glad to retire with Savine and a cigar-box to the veranda, and trying to console himself with the reflection that he had at least shown no weakness—he took his leave early. Helen was not present when he bade Mrs. Savine farewell, but she saw him stride away over the gravel. Though she would not ask herself why, she felt gratified that he had not stayed away.

It was some time later when, one day of early winter, he sat in his wooden shanty, which at that season replaced the tent above the canyon. Close by English Jim was busy writing, and Geoffrey, gnawing an unlighted pipe, glanced alternately through the open door at his hurrying workmen and at the letter from Thomas Savine which he held in his hand.

The letter expressed a fear that a financial crisis was imminent. "Tell him he must settle all local bills up to the minute," said Thurston, throwing it across to his amanuensis. "I daresay the English makers will wait a little for payment due on machinery. Did you find that the amount I mentioned would cover the wages through the winter?"

"Only just," was the answer. "That is, unless you could cut some of them a little."

"Not a cent," Geoffrey replied. "The poor devils who risk their lives daily fully earn their money."

"Do you know their wages equal the figure the strikers demanded and you refused to pay? Summers told me about that dispute, sir," ventured English Jim.

"The strikers were not prepared to earn higher pay—and that one word, 'demanded,' makes a big difference. Hello! who is the stranger?"

Mattawa Tom was directing a horseman towards the shanty, and Geoffrey, who watched the newcomer with growing interest, found something familiar in his face and figure, until he rose up in astonishment when the man rode nearer.

"Halliday, by all that's wonderful!" he cried. "Uncommonly glad to see you; but whatever brought you back to this far-off land again?"

"Several things," was the answer, as Halliday, shaking the snow from his furs, dismounted stiffly. "Strain of overwork necessitated a change, my doctor told me. Trust estate I'm winding up comprised doubtful British Columbian mining interests, and last, but not least, to see you, Geoffrey."

The man's fur coat was open now, and Geoffrey, who glanced at the black coat beneath it, said:

"I'm glad you wanted to see me, anyway, but come in. Here, Jake, take the horse to the stable. Are my sympathies needed, Halliday—any of my new friends over yonder dead?"

Halliday stared at him blankly. "Haven't you read the letter I sent you? Do you get no English papers?" he questioned.

"No, to both. I fancy very few people over yonder trouble themselves as to whether I'm living. How did you address your letter?"

"Orchard City, or was it Orchardville? Mrs. Leslie told me the name of the postoffice, and I looked it up on a map."

Geoffrey thrust his guest into a chair.

"That explains it. This is Orchard Valley; the other place is away across the province, a forlorn hamlet, and some ox-driving postmaster has no doubt returned your letter. Do you bring bad news? Don't keep me in suspense."

"Anthony Thurston's dead. Died in your old place, partly the result of a gun accident," answered Halliday, and Geoffrey sat silent for a moment.

"I'm sorry—yes, sincerely," he said at last. "I can say it freely, because, as I daresay you know, I disappointed him, and can in no way benefit by his death. In fact, he had the power to refuse me what was morally my right, and no doubt he exercised it. Still, now it's too late, I feel ashamed that I never tried to patch up the quarrel. Poor old Anthony!"

Halliday smiled. "You are a better fellow than you often lead folks to suppose, Geoffrey—and I quite believe you. Such regrets are, however, generally useless, are they not? In this case especially so, for Anthony Thurston forgot the quarrel before he died, and sent you his very good wishes. I see I have a surprise in store. You are a beneficiary. He has bequeathed you considerably more than your moral share in the property."

Thurston strode up and down the shanty before he halted.

"I'm glad that, though perhaps I deserved it, he didn't carry the bitterness into the grave with him," he declared with earnestness. "We were too much like each other to get on well, but there was a time when he was a good friend to me. It's no use pretending I'm not pleased at what you tell me—it means a great deal to me. But you must be tired and hungry, and I want to talk by the hour to you."

Halliday did full justice to the meal which the camp cook produced, and afterwards the two men sat talking until the short winter afternoon had drawn to a close and the first stars were blinking down on untrodden snows. Answering a question Halliday said:

"Your share—I'll show you a complete list when I unpack my things—will, if left invested, provide you with a moderate income for a single man. Indeed, with your Spartan tastes, you might live in what you would consider luxury. As usual, however, in such cases, the securities are not readily marketable, and your interest in some ventures could hardly be summarily realized at any sacrifice. The whole is left to you unconditionally, but my advice is decidedly that you hold on."

"I am sorry," Geoffrey replied, "because even at a sacrifice I intend to sell. If you're not too tired to listen a little longer, I'll try to explain why."

Halliday listened gravely. Then he commented:

"As Anthony Thurston said, it is characteristic of you, and it's possible that he would have approved of what on the surface looks like folly. He stated that he hoped the bequest would help you to confound your enemies. But you must act as a business man. You say that, if you go deeper, your firm might still wind up just solvent; then why not abandon the apparently hopeless project, and withdraw? Follow your profession if you must work, or live upon your income. This drainage scheme looks tolerably desperate on your own showing, and if, selling at a sacrifice you sink all your new possessions in it, you may be left utterly cleaned out, a beggar. You have no other relatives likely to leave you another competence, Geoffrey."

"It can't be helped—or rather I don't want to help it. I've pledged my word and honor to see this undertaking through, and I mean to redeem it if it ruins me. Now what were you telling me about Mrs. Leslie?"

Halliday explained for some minutes before he said:

"You are on the spot, and it's your duty to join us. Anthony Thurston was always eccentric, and has left us a very troublesome charge. Her husband is not to get at the money, and this discrimination between man and wife is going to be confoundedly awkward. However, as I'm going to stay some little time, and if possible shoot a mountain sheep, we can discuss it at leisure."

Thomas Savine, who came up in a day or two, speedily became good friends with Halliday. Geoffrey had his work to superintend, and was suspicious that Halliday seized the opportunity his absence afforded to explain what appeared to him a sacrifice of Anthony Thurston's legacy. One evening when Halliday was down in the canyon watching the workmen toiling in the river, under the lurid blaze of the lucigen, Thomas Savine said:

"I'm going to talk straight, Geoffrey. Your friend told me the whole thing, and I agree with his opinion. See here, you are safe for life if you hold fast to what you have got now—and the Lord knows whether we will ever be successful in the canyon. Of course the money would help us, but it isn't sufficient to make victory dead certain, and it would be a drop in the bucket if we came down with a bang, as we may very well do. Even considering what's at stake, I couldn't let you make the plunge without protesting."

"If I had ten times as much, or ten times as little, it would all go after the rest," replied Geoffrey. "I appreciate your good intentions, but you can't, and never will, convince me, so there's no use talking. You will, in the meantime, say not a word to Miss Savine on the subject."

Next morning Geoffrey said to his guest:

"I want you to write out a telegram to your partner in England. Yonder's a mounted messenger waiting for it. He's to sell everything bequeathed to me at the best price he can. You have done your best, Halliday, and I suppose I ought to be more grateful than I am, but you see I'm rather fond than otherwise of a big risk. We'll ride over with Mr. Savine and call upon my partner to-day."

It was late in the afternoon when the two arrived at the ranch which Savine had rented. It was the nearest dwelling to the camp that could be rendered comfortable, but lay some distance from it, over a very bad trail. Helen was not cordial towards Geoffrey, who left her to entertain Halliday, and slipped away to the room looking down the valley, where his partner sat with a fur robe wrapped about his bent shoulders. Savine's face had grown very hollow and his eyes were curiously dim.

"It was good of you to come, Geoffrey," he said; "How are you getting on in the canyon?"

"Famously, sir. We are certainly going to beat the river," was the prompt answer, and remembering the accession of capital, Geoffrey's cheerfulness was real. "I'm hoping to ask Miss Savine to fire the final shot some time before the snows melt."

Savine looked at him with a trace of his old keenness, and appeared satisfied that the speaker believed in his own prediction. Then he smiled as he answered:

"You do me good, Geoffrey. Good news is better than gallons of medicine, and when you make such a promise I feel I can trust you. I'm grateful, but it's mighty trying to lie here helpless while another man plays out my last and boldest game for me. Lord! what wouldn't I give for just three months of my old vigor! Still, I'll never be fit again, and as I must lean on somebody, I'm glad it should be you."

"Lean on me! You have given me the chance of my life, sir. You don't look quite comfortable there. Let me settle that rug for you," said Geoffrey, and as with clumsy gentleness he rearranged the sick man's wrappings, Helen came unobserved into the room. She read the pity beneath the smile on the younger man's bronze face and noticed how willingly his hard fingers did their unaccustomed work. Her heart grew soft towards Geoffrey as she heard her father's sigh of content. The sight touched, though, for a reason she was ashamed of, it also troubled her. Unwilling to disturb them, she merely smiled when Thurston saw her, and found herself a seat in a corner.

"My brain's not so clear as it used to be. No use hiding things. Why," began Savine, and Geoffrey, who surmised that he had not seen his daughter, knocked over a medicine bottle with his elbow and spent some time noisily groping under the table for it. The action might have deceived one of his own sex, but Helen, who wondered what his motive was, grew piqued as well as curious.

"I've been worrying over things lately," continued Savine. "There was one of the rancher's hired men in and he told our folks a mixed story about a sluice gate bursting. You never mentioned it to me. Now I have a hazy notion that I made a drawing for a gate one day, when I was—sick, we'll say. I looked for it afterwards and couldn't find it. I've been thinking over it considerable lately."

"Then you are very foolish, sir," declared Geoffrey. "Of course, we have had one or two minor breakages, but nothing we were unable to remedy. Just now everything is going ahead in the most satisfactory manner."

Helen, who watched the speaker, decided that he was concealing something, and also fancied her father did not seem quite satisfied.

"I've been wondering whether it was that gate which burst. See here, Geoffrey, I feel you have had bad trouble; isn't it a little mean not to tell me? You will remember I'm still Julius Savine—and only a little while ago there was no man in the province who dared to try to fool me."

A measure of the speaker's former spirit revealed itself in a clearer vibration of his voice, and, raising himself in his chair, Savine became for a moment almost the man he had been.

Thurston had determined to hold his fallen leader's credit safe, not only before the eyes of others but even in his own, and was doing it to the best of his ability.

"Of course, we have had trouble—lots of it, but nothing we could not overcome," he repeated. "If everything went smoothly it would grow monotonous. Still, you can rest perfectly contented, sir, and assist us with your judgment in the difficult cases. For instance, would you let me know what you think of these specifications?"

Savine, who seemed to find a childish pleasure in being consulted, forgot his former anxiety, and Geoffrey, leaving him contented, slipped out of the ranch, and, finding a sheltered path among the redwoods, paced to and fro. He was presently surprised to see Helen move out from among the trees. She had a fur about her shoulders which set off the finely-chiselled face above it. Nevertheless, for once at least, he was by no means pleased to see her.

"I wish to ask you a question," she said. "Of course, I have heard there was an inquiry into the breaking of the sluice, but neither you nor my uncle thought fit to give me any definite information on the subject. Unfortunately, my father heard distorted rumors of the accident, and has been fretting ever since. As you know, this is most detrimental to his failing health, and, so that I may be the better able to soothe him I want you to tell me all that happened."

"There is absolutely no cause for uneasiness. As I said, we had one or two difficulties which may have been vanquished. Your uncle will bear me out in this," answered Geoffrey, who would have spoken more freely had he not feared the girl's keenness. Helen's face, which was at first scornful, grew anxious as she responded:

"I have no doubt he would! In fact, when I asked him he explained with such readiness that I cannot help concluding you have both conspired to keep me in the dark. Can you not see that, situated as I am in caring for an invalid who will not let his mind rest, uncertainty is almost worse than the knowledge of disaster to me. Will you not tell me frankly what you fear?"

"I would do anything to drive your fears away." Geoffrey, who felt helpless beneath the listener's searching eyes, spoke with sympathy in his voice. "But I can only say again there is very slight cause for anxiety."

Helen turned half from him, angrily, then she faced round again. "You are not a good dissembler. If quick at making statements you are not prepared to substantiate them," she declared. "You would do anything to dispel my fears—but the one most necessary thing I ask. You have passed through, or are now facing, a crisis, and though some knowledge of it would be of great help to me you do not consider me worthy of your confidence."

"Heaven forbid that I should think so. There is no one more worthy—but——" Helen checked him with a gesture.

"I desire the simple truth and not indifferent compliments," she said. "You will not tell it to me, and I will plead with you no further, even for my father's sake. When will you men learn that a woman's discretion is at least equal to your own?" With a flash in her eyes, she added: "How dare you once offer what you did to a woman you had no trust in?"

"You are almost cruel," Geoffrey answered, clenching his hand as he mastered his own anger. "Some day, perhaps, you will yet believe I tried to do what was best. Meantime, since I dare not presume to resent it, I must try to bear your displeasure patiently."

He might have said more, but that Helen left him abruptly.

"It is confoundedly hard. Once strike a certain vein of bad luck and you can neither get around nor under it, but there's no use groaning—and what on earth could I have done?" he said to the whispering firs.

He went back presently to the ranch, and found Helen, who apparently did not notice his return, chatting with Halliday. When the two men bade their host farewell, Halliday, who lingered a few minutes, observed to Thomas Savine:

"I always knew my friend was reckless, but when I spoke as I did I failed to comprehend what was at once his incentive and justification. I must thank you for your attempt to aid me, but even against the dictates of my judgment I can't help sympathizing with him now. If you don't mind my saying so—because I see you know—I think what he hopes to win is very well worth the risk."

"I certainly know, and perhaps I am prejudiced in favor of my niece, but I feel tempted to agree with you," answered Savine. "There are few better women in the Dominion, but she is wayward, and whether Geoffrey will ever win her only Heaven knows. Meantime, though we depend so much upon him, I am often ashamed to let him take his chances with us. Believe me, I have endeavored to dissuade him."

Halliday smiled. "I am a kinsman of his and know him well," he said. "It is quite in keeping with traditions that he should be perfectly willing to ruin himself for a woman, and I am at least thankful that the woman proves worthy. In this case, however, I venture to hope the end may be the achievement of prosperity. I generally speak my mind and hope I have not offended you."



CHAPTER XXIII

THE ULTIMATUM

Winter creeping down from the high peaks held the whole valley fast in its icy grip when Mrs. Thomas Savine, who was seldom daunted by the elements, went up from Vancouver to persuade her niece to seek sheltered quarters on the sunny coast until spring. Her visit was, however, in this respect a failure, for Julius Savine insisted upon remaining within touch of the reclamation works. Though seldom able to reach them, he looked eagerly forward to Geoffrey's brief visits, which alone seemed to arouse him from his lethargy.

Mrs. Savine and Helen sat in the general living-room at the ranch one day when her brother-in-law came in leaning heavily upon his partner's arm. Geoffrey had set his carpenters to build a sleigh, and from one hill shoulder bare of timber it was possible, with good glasses, to see what went on in the canyon. Savine was listening with evident satisfaction to the tall, frost-bronzed man who led him towards the room that he delighted to call his office, and Mrs. Savine, noticing it, smiled gratefully upon Geoffrey. Worn by anxious watching, Helen was possibly a little out of humor that afternoon, and the sight awoke within her a certain jealousy. She had done her best, and had done it very patiently, but she had failed to arouse her father to the animation he showed in Geoffrey's presence.

"I haven't felt so well since I saw you last," observed Savine, oblivious for the moment of his daughter. "You won't fail to come back as soon as ever you can—say the day after to-morrow?"

Geoffrey glanced towards Helen, who made no sign, and Mrs. Savine noticed that for a moment his face clouded. Then, as he turned towards his partner, he seemed to make an effort, and his expression was confident again.

"I am afraid I cannot leave the works quite so often. Yes—we are progressing at least as well as anyone could expect," he said. "I will come and consult you whenever I can. In fact, there are several points I want your advice upon."

"Come soon," urged Savine, with a sigh. "It does me good to talk to you—after the life I've lived, this everlasting loafing comes mighty hard to me. I believe once I knew we were victorious I could let go everything and die happy."

Helen heard, and, overwrought as she was by nights of assiduous care, the speech both pained and angered her. Geoffrey's answer was not audible, as they passed on. He came back alone, off his guard for a moment, looking worn and weary, and Mrs. Savine said:

"You are tired, Geoffrey, and if you don't appear more lively next time I will attend to you. No—don't get scared. It is not physic I'm going to prescribe now. Take this lounge and just sit here where it's cosy. Talk to Helen and me until supper's ready."

Thurston had been crawling over ice-crusted rocks and wading knee-deep in water most of the preceding night. The chair stood temptingly between the two ladies and near the stove. He glanced towards it and Helen longingly. Some impulse tempted the girl to say:

"Mr. Thurston has usually so little time to spare that it would be almost too much to hope that he could devote an hour to us."

The tone was ironical, and Geoffrey, excusing himself, went out. He sighed as he floundered down the snow-cumbered trail. There was indignation in the elder lady's voice as she declared:

"I am ashamed of you, Helen. The poor man came in too late, for dinner, and he must be starving. If you had just seen how he looked at you! You'd feel mean and sorry if they found him to-morrow frozen hard in the snow."

Helen could not fancy Geoffrey overcome by such a journey because he had missed two meals, and she smiled at her aunt's dismal picture, answering her with a flippancy which increased the elder lady's indignation, "Mr. Thurston is not a cannibal, auntie."

"I can't figure why you are fooling with that man if you don't want him," said Mrs. Savine. "Oh, yes; you're going to sit here and listen to some straight talking. Isn't he good enough for you?"

Helen's face was flushed with angry color. "You speak with unpleasant frankness, but I will endeavor to answer you," she responded. "I have told Mr. Thurston—that is, I have tried to warn him that he was expecting the impossible, and what more could I do? He is my father's partner, and I cannot refuse to see him. I——"

Mrs. Savine, leaning forward, took her niece's hands in her own, saying gravely, "Are you certain it is quite impossible?"

For a moment Helen looked startled, and her eyes fell. Then, raising her head, she answered: "Have I not told you so? I have been anxious about my father lately and do not feel myself to-day. Surely you have no wish further to torment me."

"No, but I mean to finish what I have to say. Do you know all that man is doing for you? He has——" But Mrs. Savine ceased abruptly, remembering she had in return for her husband's confidence promised secrecy.

"Yes. I think I know everything," replied Helen, with something suspiciously like a sob, while her aunt broke her pledge to the extent of shaking her head with a gesture of negation. "It—it makes it worse for me. I dare not bid him go away, and I grow horribly ashamed because—because it hurts one to be conscious of so heavy a debt. Besides, he is consoling himself with Mrs. Leslie!"

"Geoffrey Thurston would be the last man to consider you owed him anything, and as to Mrs. Leslie—pshaw! It's as sure as death, Geoffrey doesn't care two bits for her. He would never let you feel that debt, my dear, but the debt is there. From what Tom has told me he has declined offer after offer, and you know that, if he carries this last scheme through, the credit and most of the money will fall to your father."

"I know." The moisture gathered in Helen's eyes. "I am grateful, very grateful—as I said, ashamed, too; but my father comes first. I tried to warn Geoffrey, but he would not take no. I feel almost frightened sometimes lest he will force me to yield against my will, but you know that would be a wrong to him—and what can I do?"

Helen, unclasping her hands from her aunt's, looked straight before her, and Mrs. Savine answered gently: "Not that. No—if you can't like him it would not be fair to him. Only try to be kind, and make quite sure it is impossible. It might have been better for poor Geoffrey if he had never mixed himself up with us. You, with all your good points, are mighty proud, my dear, but I have seen proud women find out their mistake when it was too late to set things straight. Wait, and without the help of a meddlesome old woman, it will perhaps all come right some day."

"Auntie," said Helen, looking down, some minutes later. "Though you meant it in kindness, I am almost vexed with you. I have never spoken of these things to anyone before, and though it has comforted me, you won't remind me—will you?"

"No." The older woman smiled upon the girl. "Of course not! But you are pale and worried, and I believe that there is nothing that would fix you better than a few drops of the elixir. I think I sent you a new bottle."

Then, though her eyes were misty, Helen laughed outright, as she replied:

"It was very kind of you, but I fear I lost the bottle, and have wasted too much time over my troubles. What can I tempt my father with for supper?"

When Geoffrey returned to camp, Halliday, who had arrived that day from Vancouver, had much to tell him.

"I've sold your English property, and the value lies to your credit in the B. O. M. agency. All you have to do is to draw upon your account," he said. "As you intend to sink the money in these works I can only wish you the best of good luck. Now, I'm starting for home to-morrow, and there's the other question—how to protect the interests of Mrs. Leslie. Anthony Thurston made a just will, and her share, while enough to maintain her, is not a large one, but I don't see yet just how it's to be handled. It was the testator's special wish that you should join the trustees, and that her husband should not lay his hands upon a dollar. From careful inquiries made in Vancouver, I judge he's a distinctly bad lot. Anyway, you'll have to help us in the meantime, Geoffrey, and in opening a small bank account I made your signature necessary on every check."

"It's a confoundedly unpleasant position under the circumstances. What on earth could my kinsman have been thinking of when he forced it upon me of all men?" Geoffrey responded with a rueful face. "Still, I owe him a good deal, and suppose that I must cheerfully acquiesce to his wishes."

"I cannot take upon myself to determine what the testator thought," was the dry answer. "He said the estimable Mr. Leslie might either shoot or drink himself to death some day. The late Anthony Thurston was a tenacious person, and you must draw your own conclusions."

"If there was one thing which more than another tempted me to refuse you every scrap of assistance it was the conclusion I arrived at," said Geoffrey. "However, I'll try to keep faith with the dead man, and Heaven send me sense sufficient to steer clear of difficulties."

"I can trust your honesty any way," remarked Halliday. "There's a heavy load off my mind at last. You are a good fellow, Geoffrey, and, excuse the frankness, even in questions beyond your usual scope not so simple as you sometimes look."

A day or two before this conversation took place, Henry Leslie, sitting at his writing-table in the villa above the inlet, laid down his pen and looked up gratefully at his wife, who placed a strip of stamped paper before him. Millicent both smiled and frowned as she noticed how greedily his fingers fastened upon it.

"It is really very good of you. You don't know how much this draft means to me," he said. "I wish I needn't take it, but I am forced to. It's practically the whole of the first dole your skinflint trustee made you, isn't it?"

"It is a large share," was the answer. "Almost a year's allowance, and I'm going to pay off our most pressing debts with the rest. But I am glad to give it to you, Harry, and we must try to be better friends, and keep on the safe side after this."

"I hope we shall," replied the man, who was touched for once. "It's tolerably hard for folks like us, who must go when the devil drives, to be virtuous, but I got hold of a few mining shares, which promise to pay well now, for almost nothing; and if they turn up trumps, I'd feel greatly tempted to throw over the Company and start afresh."

He hurriedly scribbled a little note, and Millicent turned away with a smile that was not far from a sigh. She had returned from England in a repentant mood, and her husband, whose affairs had gone smoothly, was almost considerate, so that, following a reconciliation, there were times when she cherished an uncertain hope that they might struggle back to their former level. It was on one of the occasions when their relations were not altogether inharmonious that she had promised to give him a draft to redeem the loan Director Shackleby held like a whip lash over him. Had Leslie been a bolder man, it is possible that his wife's aspirations might have been realized, for Millicent was not impervious to good influences.

Unfortunately for her, however, a free-spoken man called Shackleby, who said that he had been sent by his colleagues who managed the Industrial Enterprise Company, called upon Thurston and Savine together in their city offices. He came straight to the point after the fashion of Western business men.

"Julius Savine has rather too big a stake in the Orchard Valley for any one man," he said. "It's ancient history that if, as usual with such concerns as ours, we hadn't been a day or two too slow, we would have held the concessions instead of him. Neither need I tell you about the mineral indications in both the reefs and alluvial. Now we saw our way to rake a good many dollars out of that valley, but when Savine got in ahead we just sat tight and watched him, ready to act if he found the undertaking too big for him. It seems to me that has happened, which explains my visit to-day. We might be open to buy some of those conditional lands from you."

"They may never be ours to sell, though I hope for the contrary," Geoffrey replied.

"Exactly," said the other. "That is why we're only ready to offer you out-district virgin forest value for the portions colored blue in this plan. In other words, we speculate by advancing you money on very uncertain security."

Geoffrey laughed after a glance at the plan. "You have a pretty taste! After giving you all the best for a tithe of its future value, where do we come in?"

"On the rest," declared Shackleby, coolly. "We would pay down the money now, and advance you enough on interest to place you beyond all risks in completing operations. Though you might get more for the land, without this assistance, you might get nothing, and it will be a pretty heavy check. I suppose I needn't say it was not until lately that we decided to meet you this way."

"By your leave!" broke in Thomas Savine, who had been scribbling figures on a scrap of paper, which he passed to Geoffrey. It bore a few lines scrawled across the foot of it: "Value absurdly low, but it might be a good way to hedge against total loss, and we could level up the average on the rest. What do you think?"

Geoffrey grasped a pen, and the paper went back with the brief answer, "That it would be a willful sacrifice of Miss Savine's future."

"Suppose we refuse?" he asked, and Shackleby stroked his mustache meditatively before he made answer:

"Don't you think that would be foolish? You see, we were not unanimous by a long way on this policy, and several of our leaders agree with me that we had better stick to our former one. It's a big scheme, and accidents will happen, however careful one may be. Then there's the risk of new conditions being imposed upon you by the authorities. Besides, you have a time limit to finish in, and mightn't do it, especially without the assistance we could in several ways render you. You can't have a great many dollars left either—see?"

"I do," said Geoffrey, with an ominous glitter in his eyes. "You needn't speak more plainly. Accidents, no doubt of the kind you refer to, have happened already. They have not, however, stopped us yet, and are not going to. I, of course, appreciate your delicate reference to your former policy; I conclude it was your policy individually. I don't like threats, even veiled ones, and nobody ever succeeded in coercing me. Accordingly, when we have drained it, we'll sell you all the land you want at its market value. You can't have an acre at anything like the price you offer now."

"That's your ultimatum. Yes? Then I'm only wasting time, and hope you won't be sorry," returned Shackleby. When he went out Geoffrey turned to Thomas Savine.

"A declared enemy is preferable to a treacherous ally," he observed dryly. "That man would never have kept faith with us."

"I don't know," was the answer. "Of course, he's crooked, but he has his qualities. Anyway, I'd sooner trust him than the invertebrate crawler, Leslie."

A day or two later Shackleby called upon Leslie in his offices and with evident surprise received the check Millicent had given to her husband.

"I wasn't in any hurry. Have some of your titled relatives in the old country left you a fortune?" he inquired ironically.

"No," was the answer. "My folks are mostly distinctly poor commoners. I, well—I have been rather fortunate lately."

"Here's your receipt," said Shackleby, with an embarrassing stare, adding when Leslie, after examining it carefully, thrust the paper into the glowing stove, "Careful man! Nobody is going to get ahead of you, but can't you see that blame paper couldn't have made a cent's worth of difference between you and me. Well, if you still value your connection with the Company, I have something to tell you. That infernal idiot Thurston won't hear of making terms, and, as you know, there's a fortune waiting if we can corral the valley."

"I can see the desirability, but not the means of accomplishing it," replied Leslie.

"No!" and the speaker glanced at him scornfully. "Well, Thurston must finish by next summer, or his conditional grants are subject to revision, while it's quite plain he can only work in the canyon in winter. Something in the accident line has got to happen."

"It failed before." Shackleby laughed.

"What's the matter with trying again, and keeping on trying? I've got influence enough to double your salary if Thurston doesn't get through. It will be tolerably easy, for this time I don't count on trusting too much to you. I'll send you along a man and you'll just make a bet with him—we'll fix the odds presently and they'll be heavy against us—that Thurston successfully completes the job in the canyon. The other man bets he doesn't. When it appears judicious we'll contrive something to draw Thurston away for a night or two."

"But if you know the man, and it's so easy, why not make the bet yourself?" Shackleby smiled pleasantly.

"Because I'm not secretary hoping to get my salary doubled and a land bonus. There are other reasons, but I don't want to hurt your feelings any more than I wish to lacerate those of my worthy colleagues. They'll ask no questions and only pass a resolution thanking you for your zealous services. Nothing is going to slip up the wrong way, but if it did you could only lose your salary, and I'd see you safe on the way to Mexico with say enough to start a store, and you would be no worse off than before, because I figure you'd lose the berth unless you chip in with me."

Leslie realized that this might well be so, but he made a last attempt. "Suppose in desperation I turned round on you?"

"I'd strike you for defamation and conspiracy, publish certain facts in your previous record, and nobody would believe you, or dare to say so. Besides, you haven't got grit enough in you by a long way, and that's why I'm taking your consent for granted. By the way, I forgot to mention that confounded Britisher raked an extra hundred dollars out of me. Said I'd got to pay for his traveling and hotel expenses. I'm not charging you, Leslie, and you ought to feel grateful to me."



CHAPTER XXIV

AN UNEXPECTED ALLY

Winter was drawing towards its close at last, when, on the evening of a day in which the result of a heavy blasting charge had exceeded his utmost expectations, Geoffrey Thurston stood beside his foreman in his workmen's mess shanty. Tin lamps hung from the beams blackened with smoke, and sturdy men were finishing their six o'clock supper beneath them. The men were the pick of the province, for, until tempted by the contractor's high wages, most of them had been engaged in laying the foundations of its future greatness by wresting new spaces for corn and cattle from the forest. They ate, as they worked, heroically. The supper was varied and bountiful, for Geoffrey, who was conscious of a thrill of pride as he glanced down the long rows of weather-beaten faces, fed his workmen well. They had served him faithfully through howling gale and long black night, under scorching sun and bitter frost, and now that the result of that day's operations had brought the end of the work in sight, there was satisfaction in the knowledge that he had led such men.

"They're a fine crowd, Tom, and I'll be sorry to part with them," he said. "It's hard to believe, after all we have struggled with, that less than three weeks will see us through, but I'd give many dollars for every hour we can reduce the time by. Send for a keg of the hardest cider and I'll tell them so."

There was applause when the keg was lifted to the table with its head knocked in. Geoffrey, who had filled a tin dipper, said: "Here's my best thanks for the way you have backed me, boys. Since they carried the railroad across Beaver Creek, few men in the province have grappled as you have with a task like this; but it's sometimes just possible to go a little better than what looks like one's best, and I'm asking as a favor from all of you that you will redouble your efforts. I estimate that we'll finish this tough section in eighteen days from now, but I want the work done in less time, and accordingly I'll promise a bonus to every man if we can fire the last big shot a fortnight from to-day."

"Stan' by!" shouted a big section foreman, as he hove himself upright. "Fill every can up an' wait until I've finished. Now, Mr. Thurston, I'm talking for the rest. You've paid us good wages, an' we've earned them, every cent, though that wasn't much to our credit, for Tom from Mattawa saw we did. Still, even dollars won't buy everything, and what you can't pay us for we're ready to give. If flesh an' blood can do it, a fortnight will see us through, an' the next contract you take, if it's to wipe out the coast range or run off the Pacific, we're coming along with you. I've nailed you to the bargain, boys, an' here's—The Boss, victorious, an' to —— with his bonus!"

The long shanty rang to the roar that followed, and, when it died away, Geoffrey, who set down his can, turned to his foreman.

"Who is the little man next to Walla Jake?" he asked.

"An old partner of his from Oregon. Came in one day when you were away, and, as Jake allowed he was a square man, I took him on. Found him worth his money, and fancied I'd told you."

"You did not," said Geoffrey. "Jake's quite trustworthy, but watch the stranger well. No doubt he's honest, but I'm getting nervous now we're so near the end."

The foreman answered reassuringly, and Geoffrey, who turned away, rode beneath the snow-sprinkled firs to Savine's ranch. It was late when he reached it, but his partner and Helen were expecting him. Savine sighed with satisfaction when Geoffrey said:

"In all probability we shall fire the decisive shot a fortnight from to-day."

"It is great news," replied Julius Savine. "As I have said already, it was a lucky day for me—and mine—when I first fell in with you. Two more anxious weeks and then the suspense will be over and I can contentedly close my career. Lord! it will be well worth the living for—the consummation of the most daring scheme ever carried out in the Mountain Province. I won't see your next triumph, Geoffrey, but it can hardly be greater than this you have won for me."

"You exaggerate, sir," said Geoffrey. "It was you who won the concession and overcame all the initial difficulties, while we would never have gone so far without your assistance. Such a task would have been far beyond me alone."

"No—though it is good of you to say so. There were times when I tried to fancy I was running the contract, but that was just a sick man's craze. You have played out the game well and bravely, Geoffrey, as only a true man could. Perhaps Helen will thank you—just now I don't feel quite equal to it."

Savine's voice broke a little, and he glanced at Helen, who sat very still with downcast eyes. Geoffrey also looked at her for a second, and his elation was tinged with bitterness. He could see that she was troubled, and, with a pang of sudden misgiving, he watched her anxiously. Without the one prize he had striven for, the victory would be barren to him. Still, he desired to save her embarrassment, and when she raised her head to obey her father, he broke in:

"Miss Savine can place me under an obligation by firing the fateful charge instead. It was her first commission which brought good luck to me, and it is only fitting she should complete the result of it by turning the firing key."

Helen's eyes expressed her gratitude, as, consenting, she turned them upon the speaker. Geoffrey rising to the occasion, said:

"Did you ever hear the story of the first contract I undertook in British Columbia, sir? May I tell it to your father, Miss Savine?"

Helen was quick to appreciate his motive, and allowed him to see it. While, seizing the opportunity to change the subject, Geoffrey told the story whimsically. Humor was not his strong point, but he was capable of brilliancy just then. Julius Savine laughed heartily, and when the tale was finished all had settled down to their normal manner. When Geoffrey took his leave, however, Helen followed him to the veranda, and held out her hand. She stood close to him with the moonlight full upon her, and it was only by an effort that the man who gripped the slender fingers, conquered his desire to draw her towards him. Helen never had looked so desirable. Then he dropped her hand, and stood impassively still, waiting for what she had to say.

"I could not thank you before my father, but neither could I let you go without a word," she said, with a quiet composure which, because she must have guessed at the struggle within him, was the badge of courage. "You have won my undying gratitude, and——"

"That is a great deal, very well worth the winning," he responded. "It will be one pleasant memory to carry away with me."

"To carry with you! You are not going away?" asked Helen, with an illogical sense of dismay, which was not, however, in the least apparent. She knew that any sign of feeling would provoke the crisis from which she shrank.

"Yes," declared Geoffrey. "Once this work is completed, I shall seek another field."

"You must not!" Though her voice was strained, Helen, who dared not do otherwise, looked him steadily in the eyes. "You must not go. Now, when, if you stay in the Province, fame and prosperity lie within your grasp you will not overwhelm me by adding to the knowledge of all I have robbed you of. It is hard for me to express myself plainly—but I dare not take this from you, too."

"Can you not guess how hard it all is for me?" He strode a few paces apart from her while the words fell from his lips. Then he halted again and turned towards her.

"I had not meant to distress you—but how can I go on seeing you so near me, hearing your voice, when every word and smile stir up a longing that at times almost maddens me? What I have done I did for you, and did it gladly, but this new command I cannot obey. Fame and prosperity! What are either worth to me when the one thing I would sell my life for is, you have told me, not to be attained?"

"I am sorry," faltered Helen, whose breath came faster. "More sorry than I can well express. I dare not ruin a bright future for you. Is there nothing I can say that will prevent you?"

"Only one thing," Geoffrey moving nearer looked down upon her until his gaze impelled Helen to lift her eyes. There was no longer any trace of passion in his face, which in spite of its firm lines had grown gentle.

"Only one thing," he repeated. "Please listen—it is necessary, even if it hurts you. I cannot blame you for my own folly, but my love is incurable. You are a dutiful daughter, with an almost exaggerated idea of justice, and I know the power circumstances give me. Still, I am so covetous that I must have all or nothing; I love you so that I dare not use the advantage chance has given me. Nevertheless, I will not despair even yet, and some day when, perhaps, absence has hidden some of my many shortcomings, I will come back and beg speech with you."

"You are very generous." The words vibrated with sincerity. "Once—always—I have cruelly wronged you——" but here Geoffrey raised his hand and looked at the girl with a wry smile that had no mirth in it.

"You have never wronged me, Miss Savine. Once you spoke with a marvelous accuracy, and I am not generous, only so unusually wise that you must have inspired me. I cannot be content with less than the best, and what that is—again, if I am brutal you must remember I cannot help my nature—I will tell you."

He stooped, and, before she realized his intentions, deftly caught Helen's hands in each of his own, tightening his grip on them masterfully, until he forced her to look up at him. Helen trembled as she met his eyes. The man had spoken no more than the truth when he said he could not help his nature, and, suddenly transformed, it was the former Geoffrey Thurston she had shrunk from who held her fast.

"Yes, I am wise. I know I could bend you to my will now, and that afterwards you would hate me for it," he told her. "I—I would not take you so, not if you came to me. Further, for we have dropped all disguises, and face the naked truth, I have striven, and starved, and suffered for you, risked my life often—and you shall not cheat me of my due, which alone is why, because my time is not come yet, I shall go away. The one reward that will satisfy me is this, that of your own will you will once more hold my hands and say, 'I love you, Geoffrey Thurston,' and I can wait with patience—for you will come to me thus some day."

He bent his head; and Helen felt her heart leap; but it was only her fingers upon which his lips burned hot. The next moment he had gone, while leaning breathless against the balustrade she gazed after him.

Geoffrey did not glance behind him until, when some distance from the ranch, he reined his horse in, and wiped his forehead. He had yielded at last to an uncontrollable impulse which was perhaps part of his inheritance from the old moss troopers, who had carried off their brides on the crupper. As he walked his horse, a muffled beat of hoofs came up the trail, and he fancied he heard a voice say: "The twentieth—I'll be ready."

Then a mounted figure appearing for a moment, vanished among the firs. Geoffrey, turning back to camp, noticed that beside the hollows the hoofs had made, there was the print of human feet in the powdery snow.

"There is nothing to bring any rancher down this way, and a man must have walked beside the rider," he speculated. "Who on earth could it be?" Dismissing the incident from his mind, he went on his way. It was only afterwards that the significance of the footprints became apparent.

There was a light in Geoffrey's quarters when at last he approached them, and the foreman met him at the door. "That blame waster, Black, has come back. Rode in quietly after dark, and none of the boys have set eyes on him," he said; and, noting his master's surprise, he added with a chuckle, "I put him in there for safety, and waited right here to take care of him."

Geoffrey went into the shanty, carefully closed the door, and turned somewhat sternly upon the visitor. Black's outer appearance suggested a degree of prosperity, but his face was anxious as he said, "I guess you're surprised to see me?"

"I am," was the answer. "In view of the fact that it is my duty to hand you over to the nearest magistrate, my surprise is hardly astonishing."

"No," agreed Black, "it is not. Still, I don't think you'll surrender me. Anyway, you've got to listen to a little story first. You didn't hear the whole of it last time. I figure I can trust you to do the square thing."

"Be quick, then." Geoffrey leaned against the table while his visitor began:

"You've heard of the Blue Bird mine, and how one of the men who relocated the lapsed claim was found in the river with a gash, which a rock might have made, in the back of his head? Of course you have. Well, it was me and Bob Morgan who located the Blue Bird. Morgan was a good prospector, but the indications were hazy, and he got drunk when he could. I knew mighty little of minerals, and we done nothing with it until the time to put in our legal improvements was nearly up. Then Morgan struck rich pay ore, and we worked night and day. But we weren't quite quick enough—one night two jumpers pulled our stakes up. Oh, yes, they had the law behind them, for says the Crown, 'Unless you've developed your claim within the legal limit, it lapses; and any free miner can relocate.'"

"Come to the point," said Thurston. "I'm sleepy."

"I'm coming," Black continued; "Morgan had no grit. He got on to the whiskey, and talked about shooting himself. I swore I'd shoot the first of the other crowd who set foot on the claim instead, and half the boys who started driving pegs all round us heard me. There was a doubt as to whether the jumpers had hit the time putting their stakes in, and the boys were most for me, but as usual the thieves had a man with money behind them. His name was Shackleby."

"Ah! I begin to understand things now," said Geoffrey.

"I was sitting alone in my tent at night when one of them jumpers came in," Black went on, unheeding. "All the rest were sleeping, and the bush was very still. He'd a roll of dollar bills to give me if I'd light out quietly. Said I'd nothing to stand on, but the man behind him didn't want to figure in the papers if it went to court. Well, I wouldn't take the money, and ran him out of my tent. When he touched his pistol, I had an ax in my hand, and it was a poor man's luck that one of the boys must come along. When he'd slouched off, I began to hanker for the money, went after the jumper to see if I could raise his price, missed him and came back again, but I struck his tracks in the mud beside a creek, with another man's hoof-marks behind them. Well, next morning that jumper was found in the river with no money in his wallet, and the boys looked black at me until I had an interview with Mr. Shackleby. He'd fixed the whole thing up good enough to hang me, and nailed me down to blame hard terms as the price of my liberty. You're getting tired—no? Shackleby got the Blue Bird, and kept his claws on me until his man, Leslie, sent me up to bust your machines; but Shackleby has worn me thin, until I'm ready to stand my trial sooner than run any more of his mean jobs for him; and now, to cut the long end off, do you believe me?"

"I think I do," replied Geoffrey. "What made you bolt from here, and what do you want from me? Is it the same promise as before?"

Black related the incidents of his abduction. He raised his right hand with a dramatic gesture as he concluded:

"As I have been a liar, this is gospel truth, s'help me. Whoever killed that jumper—and I figure Shackleby knows—it wasn't me. The night you fished me out of the river I said, 'Here's a man with sand enough to stand right up to Shackleby,' and I'll make a deal with you."

"The terms?" said Geoffrey.

"Rather better than before. On your part, a smart lawyer to take my case if Shackleby sets the police on me. On mine—with you behind me, I can tell a story that will bring two Companies down on Shackleby. What brought me to the scratch now was, that I read in The Colonist that you'd be through shortly, and I guessed Shackleby's insect, Leslie, would have another shot at you. I'm open to take my chances of hanging to get even with them."

The mingled fear and hatred in the speaker's face was certainly genuine, and Geoffrey said briefly: "If I thought you guilty, I'd slip irons on to you. As it is, I'm willing to close that deal. You'll have to take my word and lie quiet, until you're wanted, where I hide you."

"I guess that is good enough for me," Black declared exultantly.



CHAPTER XXV

MILLICENT'S REVOLT

"I really feel mean over it, and, of course, I will pay you back, but unless I get the money to meet the call, I shall have to sacrifice the stock," said Henry Leslie, glancing furtively at his wife across the breakfast-table.

Leslie was seldom at his best in the morning, but he seemed unusually nervous, and the coffee-cup shook in his fingers as he raised it.

"It's the last I'll ask you for," he continued, "and if you press him, Thurston will sign the check. He said he was coming, did he not?"

"Yes," was the answer. "Here is his note. It must be the last, Harry, for I have overdrawn my allowance already. You will notice that Geoffrey hesitates, and will not sign the check without seeing me. He will be here on Thursday."

Leslie took the letter with an eagerness which did not escape his wife, while, as the sum in question was small, she could not quite understand the satisfaction in his face. It had grown soddened and coarse of late, and there were times when she looked upon her husband with positive disgust. Still, she had, in spite of occasional disputes, resumed her efforts to play the part of a dutiful wife, and it was easier to pay her husband money than respect, the more so because he had usually some specious excuse, which appealed both to her ambition and her gambling instinct. At times he handed her small amounts of money, said to be her share of the profits on speculations, for which he required the loans.

"'Pressure of work, but must make an effort to see you as you suggest,'" Leslie read aloud. "H'm! 'Limit exceeded already. Will be in town, and try to call upon you on Thursday.'"

"It is very good of him," remarked Millicent. "He evidently finds every minute precious, and I am very reluctant to bring him here. I gather that, except for my request, he would have deferred his other business. Still, I suppose you must have the money, Harry?"

"I must," was the answer, and Leslie, who did not look up, busied himself with his plate. "Better write that you expect him, and I will post the note. By the way, I must remind you that we take the Eastern Fishery delegates on their steamer trip the day after to-morrow, and though there may be rather a mixed company, I want you to turn out smartly, and get hold of the best people. It would be well to see a mention of the handsome Mrs. Leslie in the newspaper report."

Millicent frowned. She was a vain woman, but she had some genuine pride, and there were limits to her forbearance. By the time her husband had induced her to withdraw her refusal to accompany him, it was too late further to discuss Thurston's visit, which was exactly what Leslie desired. Accordingly, well pleased with himself, he set out for his office, with a letter in his hand.