Mrs. Leslie had reason to remember the steamer excursion. A party of prominent persons had been invited to accompany the Fishery delegates on the maritime picnic, organized for the purpose of displaying the facilities that coast afforded for the prosecution of a new industry. It was difficult for the committee to draw a rigid line, and the company was decidedly mixed, more so than even Millicent at first surmised. Her husband, who acted as marshal, was kept busy most of the time, but she noticed a swift look of annoyance on his face when, before the steamer sailed, a tastefully-dressed young woman ascended the gangway, where he was receiving the guests. There was nothing dubious in the appearance of the lady or her elderly companion, and yet Millicent felt that Leslie was troubled by their presence, and hesitated to let them pass. The younger lady, however, smiled upon him in a manner that suggested they had met before, and Leslie stood aside when Shackleby beckoned him with what looked like an ironical grin. Then the gangway was run in, and the engines started.

It was a mild day for the season, and Millicent, who found friends, dismissed the subject from her thoughts, when she saw her husband exchange no word with his latest guests. She was sitting with a young married lady, where the sun shone pleasantly in the shelter of the great white deck-house, when a sound of voices came out, with the odor of cigar smoke, from an open window.

"You fixed it all right?" observed one voice which sounded familiar, and there was a laugh which, though muffled, was more familiar still. While, with curiosity excited, Millicent listened, a companion broke in:

"Where's Mr. Leslie? I have scarcely seen him all morning."

"Making himself useful as usual. Discoursing on fisheries and harbors, of which he knows nothing, to men who know a good deal, and no doubt doing it very neatly," said Millicent, smiling.

"Why do you let him?" asked the other, with a little gesture of pride, which became her. "Now, my husband knows better than to stay away from me, even if he wanted to. Ah, here he is, bringing good things from the sunny South piled up on a tray."

Perhaps it was the contrast, for Millicent felt both resentful and neglected when a young man approached carrying choice fruits and cakes upon a nickeled tray; but before he reached them a voice came through the window again:

"You're quite certain? That man has eyes all over him, and it won't do to take any chances with him. He must be kept right here in Vancouver all night, and the game will be in our own hands before he gets back again."

"I've done my best," was the answer, and Millicent fancied, but was not certain, that it was her husband who spoke. "I have fixed things so that he will come to Vancouver. The only worry is, can we depend upon the fellow I laid the odds with?"

"Oh, yes," responded the second voice. "I guess he knows better than fail me. By the way, you nearly made a fool of yourself over Coralie."

"Somebody inside there talking secrets," observed the younger lady. "I think it is Mr. Shackleby, and I don't like that man. Charley, set down that tray and carry my chair and Mrs. Leslie's at least a dozen yards away."

Millicent, at the risk of being guilty of eavesdropping, would have greatly preferred to stay where she was; but when the man did his wife's bidding, she could only follow and thank him. Lifting a cluster of fruit from the tray, she asked one question.

"Can you tell me, Mr. Nelson, who is Coralie?"

Nelson looked startled for a moment, and found it necessary to place another folding chair under the tray. He did not answer until his wife said:

"Didn't you hear Mrs. Leslie's question, Charley? Who is Coralie?"

"Sounds like the name of a variety actress," answered the man, by no means glibly. "Why should you ask me? I really don't know. I'm not good at conundrums. Isn't this a beautiful view? I fancied you'd have a better appetite up here than amid the crowd below."

Millicent's curiosity was further excited by the speaker's manner, but she could only possess her soul in patience, until presently it was satisfied on one point at least. She sat alone for a few minutes on the steamer's highest deck against the colored glass dome of the great white and gold saloon. Several of the brass-guarded lights were open wide, and, hearing a burst of laughter, she looked down. The young woman, who had spoken to Leslie at the gangway, sat at a corner table, partly hidden by two carved pillars below. She held a champagne glass in a lavishly jeweled hand, and there was no doubt that she was pretty, but there was that in her suggestive laugh and mocking curve of the full red lips, something which set Millicent's teeth on edge. If more were needed to increase the unpleasant impression, a rich mine promoter sat near the young woman, trying to whisper confidentially, and another man, whose name was notorious in the city, laughed as he watched them. But Millicent had seen sufficient, and turning her head, looked out to sea. There were, however, several men smoking on the opposite side of the dome, and one of them also must have looked down, for his comment was audible.

"They're having what you call a good time down there! Who and what is she?"

"Ma'mselle Coralie. Ostensibly a clairvoyante," was the dry reply.

"Clairvoyante!" repeated the first unseen speaker, who, by his clean intonation, Millicent set down as a newly-arrived Englishman. "Do you mean a professional soothsayer?"

"Something of the kind," said the other with a laugh. "We're a curious people marching in the forefront of progress, so we like to think, and yet we consult hypnotists and all kinds of fakirs, even about our business. Walk down —— Street and you'll see half-a-dozen of their name-plates. When they're young and handsome they get plenty of customers, and it's suspected that Coralie, with assistance, runs a select gambling bank of evenings. The charlatan is not tied to one profession."

"I catch on—correct phrase, isn't it?" rejoined the Englishman. "Of course, you're liberal minded and free from effete prejudice, but I hardly fancied the wives of your best citizens would care to meet such ladies."

"They wouldn't if they knew it!" was the answer. "Coralie's a newcomer; such women are birds of passage, and before she grows too famous the police will move her on. In fact, I've been wondering how she got on board to-day."

"Leslie passed her up the gangway," said another man, adding, with a suggestive laugh as he answered another question: "Why did he do it? Well, perhaps he's had his fortune told, or you can ask him. Anyway, although I think he wanted to, he dared not turn her back."

Millicent, rising, slipped away. Trembling with rage, she was glad to lean upon the steamer's rail. She had discovered long ago that her husband was not a model of virtue, but the knowledge that his shortcomings were common property was particularly bitter to her. Of late she had dutifully endeavored to live on good terms with him, and it was galling to discover that he had only, it seemed, worked upon her softer mood for the purpose of extorting money to lavish upon illicit pleasures. She felt no man could sink lower than that, and determined there should be a reckoning that very night.

"My dear Mrs. Leslie," said a voice beside her. "Why, you look quite ill. My husband brought a bottle of stuff guaranteed to cure steamboat malady. Run and get it, Charley," and Millicent turned to meet her young married friend.

"Please don't trouble, Mr. Nelson. I am not in the least sea-sick," Millicent replied. "You might, however, spread out that deck chair for me. It is a passing faintness which will leave me directly."

She remembered nothing about the rest of the voyage, except that, when the steamer reached the wharf, her husband, who helped her down the gangway, said:

"I have promised to go to the conference and afterwards dine with the delegates, Millicent, so I dare say you will excuse me. I shall not be late if I can help it, and you might wait up for me."

Millicent, who had intended to wait for him, in any case, merely nodded, and went home alone. She sat beside the English hearth all evening with an open book upside down upon her knee, and her eyes turned towards the clock, which very slowly ticked away the last hours she would spend beneath her husband's roof. There was spirit in her, and though she hardly knew why, she dressed herself for the interview carefully. When Leslie entered, his eyes expressed admiration as she rose with cold dignity and stood before him. Leslie was sober, but unfortunately for himself barely so, for the delegates had been treated with lavish Western hospitality, and there had been many toasts to honor during the dinner. He leaned against the wall with one hand on a carved bracket, looking down upon her with what seemed to be a leer of brutal pride upon his slightly-flushed face.

"You excelled yourself to-day, Millicent. I saw no end of folks admiring you," he said. "Most satisfactory day! Everything went off famously! Enjoyed yourself, eh?"

"I can hardly say I did, but that is not what you asked me to wait for," was the cold answer, and Millicent with native caution waited to hear what the man wanted before committing herself.

"No. I meant it, but it wasn't. I couldn't help saying I was proud of you." Leslie paused, doubtless satisfied, his wife thought, that he had smoothed the way sufficiently by a clumsy compliment. His abilities were not at their best just then. Millicent's thin lips curled scornfully as she listened.

"Thurston will be here on Thursday," he continued. "Never liked the man, but he has behaved decently as your trustee, and I want to be fair to him. Besides, he's a rising genius, and it's as well to be on good terms with him. Couldn't you get him to stay to dinner and talk over the way they've invested your legacy?"

"Do you think he would care to meet you?" asked Millicent, cuttingly.

"Perhaps he mightn't. You could have the Nelsons over, and press of business might detain me. Anyway, you'll have no time to settle all about that money and your English property if he goes out on the Atlantic train. You two seem to have got quite friendly again, and I'm tolerably sure he'd stay if you asked him."

Millicent's anger was rising all the time; but, because her suspicions increased every moment, she kept herself in hand. Feeling certain this was part of some plot, and that her husband was not steady enough to carry out his role cleverly, she desired to discover his exact intentions before denouncing him.

"Why should I press him?"

Had it been before the dinner Leslie might have acted more discreetly. As it was, he looked at the speaker somewhat blankly. "Why? Because I want you to. Now don't ask troublesome questions or put on your tragedy air, Millicent, but just promise to keep him here until after the east-bound train starts, anyway. I'm not asking for caprice—I—I particularly want a man to see him who will not be in the city until the following day."

Then, remembering what she had heard outside the steamer's deck house, a light suddenly broke in upon the woman. The man whose keen eyes would interfere with Shackleby's plans must be Thurston, and it was evident there was a scheme on hand to wreck his work in his absence. Once she had half-willingly assisted her husband to Thurston's detriment; but much had changed since then, and remembering that she had already, without knowing it, played into the confederate's hands by writing to him, her indignation mastered her.

"I could not persuade him against his wishes, and would not do so if I could," she declared, turning full upon her husband.

"You can and must," replied Leslie, whose passion blazed up. "I'm about sick of your obstinacy and fondness for dramatic situations. You could do anything with any man you laid yourself out to inveigle, as I know to my cost, and in this case—by the Lord, I'll make you!"

"I will not!" Millicent's face was white with anger as she fixed her eyes on him. "For a few moments you shall listen to me. What you and Shackleby are planning does not concern me; but I will not move a finger to help you. Once before you said—what you have done—and if I have never forgotten it I tried to do so. This time I shall do neither. I have borne very much from you already, but, sunk almost to your level as I am, there are things I cannot stoop to countenance. For instance, the draft I am to cajole from Thurston is not intended for a speculation in mining shares, but—for Coralie."

The little carved bracket came down from the wall with a crash, and Leslie, whose face was swollen with fury, gripped the speaker's arm savagely. "After to-morrow you can do just what pleases you and go where you will," he responded in a voice shaking with rage and fear. "But in this I will make you obey me. As to Coralie, somebody has slandered me. The money is for what I told you, and nothing else."

Millicent with an effort wrenched herself free. "It is useless to protest, for I would not believe your oath," she said, looking at him steadily with contempt showing in every line of her pose. "Obey—you! As the man I, with blind folly, abandoned for you warned me, you are too abject a thing. Liar, thief, have I not said sufficient?—adulterer!"

"Quite!" cried Leslie, who yielded to the murderous fury which had been growing upon him, and leaning down struck her brutally upon the mouth. "What I am you have made me—and, by Heaven, it is time I repaid you in part."

Millicent staggered a little under the blow, which had been a heavy one, but her wits were clear, and, moving swiftly to a bell button, the pressure of her finger was answered by a tinkle below.

"I presume you do not wish to make a public scandal," she said thickly, for the lace handkerchief she removed from her smarting lips was stained with blood. Then, as their Chinese servant appeared in the doorway, "Your master wants you, John."

Before Leslie could grasp her intentions she had vanished, there was a rustle of drapery on the stairway, followed by the jar of a lock, and he was left face to face was the stolid Asiatic.

"Wantee someling, sah?" the Chinaman asked.

Leslie glared at him speechless until, with a humble little nod, the servant said:

"Linga linga bell; too much hullee, John quick come. Wantee someling. Linga linga bell."

"Go the devil. Oh, get out before I throw you," roared Leslie, and John vanished with the waft of a blue gown, while Millicent's book crashed against the door close behind his head.



CHAPTER XXVI

A RECKLESS JOURNEY

The rising moon hung low above the lofty pines behind the city, when Millicent sank shivering into a chair beside the window of her bedroom. Under the impact of the blow her teeth had gashed her upper lip, but she did not feel the pain as she sat with hands clenched, looking down on the blaze of silver that grew broader across the inlet. She was faint and dizzy, incapable as yet of definite thought; but confused memories flashed through her brain, one among them more clearly than the rest. Instead of land-locked water shimmering beneath the Western pines, she saw dim English beeches with the coppery disk of the rising moon behind, and she heard a tall man speak with stinging scorn to one who cowered before him among the shadows.

"I was mad that night, and have paid for the madness ever since. Now when it is too late I know what I have lost!" she gasped with a catch of the breath that was a sob repressed.

There was a heavy step on the stairway, and Millicent shrank with the nausea of disgust as somebody tried the door. She drew a deep breath of relief, when the steps passed on unevenly.

The memories returned. They led her through a long succession of mistakes, falsehoods, slights and wrongs up to the present, and she shivered again, while a heavy drop of blood splashed warm upon her hand. Then she was mistress of herself once more, and a hazy purpose grew into definite shape. She could at least warn the man whom she had wronged, and so make partial reparation. It was not a wish for revenge upon her husband which prompted her to desire that amends might be made for her past treachery. Smarting with shame, she longed only to escape from him. After the day's revelations she could never forgive that blow.

Millicent was a woman of action, and it was a relief to consider practical details. She decided that a telegram might lie for days at the station nearest the canyon, while what distance divided one from the other she did not know. There was no train before noon the next day, and she feared that the plot might be put into execution as soon as Geoffrey left his camp. Therefore, she must reach it before he did so. Afterwards—but she would not consider the future then, and, if she could but warn him, nothing mattered greatly, neither physical peril nor the risk of her good name.

It was long before Millicent Leslie had thought all this out, but when once her way seemed clear, exhausted by conflicting emotions, she sank into heavy slumber, and the sun was high before she awakened. Leslie had gone to his office, and she ate a little, chose her thickest furs, and waited for noon in feverish suspense. Her husband might return and prevent her departure by force. She feared that, should he guess her intention, a special locomotive might be hired, even after the train had started. It was, therefore, necessary to slip away without word or sign, unless, indeed, she could mislead him, and, smiling mirthlessly, she laid an open letter inside her writing-case.

At last the time came, and she went out carrying only a little hand-bag, passed along the unfrequented water side to the station by the wharf, and ensconced herself in the corner of the car nearest the locomotive, counting the seconds until it should start. Once she trembled when she saw Shackleby hurry along the platform, but she breathed again when he hailed a man leaning out from the vestibule of a car. At last, the big bell clanged, and the Atlantic express, rolling out of the station, began its race across the continent.

It was nearly dusk when, with a scream of brakes, the cars lurched into a desolate mountain station, and Millicent shivered as she alighted in the frost-dried dust of snow. A nipping wind sighed down the valley. The tall firs on the hillside were fading into phantom battalions of climbing trees, and above them towered a dim chaos of giant peaks, weirdly awe-inspiring under the last faint glimmer of the dying day. A few lights blinked among the lower firs, and Millicent, hurrying towards them at the station agent's direction, was greeted by the odors of coarse tobacco as she pushed open the door of the New Eldorado saloon.

A group of bronze-faced men, some in jackets of fringed deerskin and some in coarse blue jean, sat about the stove, and, though Millicent involuntarily shrank from them, there was no reason why she should feel any fear in their presence. They were rude of aspect—on occasion more rude of speech—but, in all the essentials that become a man, she would have found few to surpass them in either English or Western cities. There was dead silence as she entered, and the others copied him when one of the loungers, rising, took off his shapeless hat, not ungracefully.

"I want a guide and good horse to take me to Thurston's camp in the Orchard River Canyon to-night," she said.

The men looked at one another, and the one who rose first replied: "Sorry to disappoint you, ma'am, but it's clean impossible. We'll have snow by morning, and it's steep chances a man couldn't get through in the dark now the shelf on the wagon trail's down."

"I must go. It is a matter of life and death, and I'm willing to pay whoever will guide me proportionate to the risk," insisted Millicent, shaking out on the table a roll of bills. Then, because she was a woman of quick perceptions, and noticed something in the big axeman's honest face, she added quickly, "I am in great distress, and disaster may follow every moment lost. Is there nobody in this settlement with courage enough to help me?"

This time the listeners whispered as they glanced sympathetically at the speaker. The big man said:

"If you're willing to face the risk I'll go with you. You can put back most of your money; but, because we're poor men you'll be responsible for the horses."

Millicent felt the cold strike through her with the keenness of steel when the went out into the night. Somebody lifted her to the back of a snorting horse, and a man already mounted seized its bridle. There was a shout of "Good luck!" and they had started on their adventurous journey. Loose floury snow muffled the beat of hoofs, the lights of the settlement faded behind and the two were alone in a wilderness of awful white beauty, wherein it seemed no living thing had broken the frozen silence since the world was made. Staring vacantly before her Millicent saw the shoulders of the mighty peaks looming far above her through a haze of driving snow, which did not reach the lower slopes, where even the wind was still. The steam of the horses hung in white clouds about them as they climbed, apparently for hours, past scattered vedettes of dwindling pines. After a long pull on a steep trail the man checked the horses on the brink of a chasm filled with eddying mist.

"That should have been our way, but the whole blame trail slipped down into the valley," the man said. "Let me take hold of your bridle and trust to me. We're going straight over the spur yonder until we strike the trail again."

It was no longer a ride but a scramble. Even those sure-footed horses stumbled continually, and where the wind had swept the thin snow away, the iron on the sliding hoofs clanged on ice-streaked rock, or hundredweights of loose gravel rattled down the incline. Then there was juniper to be struggled through. They came to slopes almost precipitous up which the panting guide somehow dragged the horses, but, one strong with muscular vigor and the other sustained by sheer force of will, the two riders held stubbornly on. Millicent had risen superior to physical weakness that night.

"Four hours to the big divide! We've pretty well equaled Thurston's record," said the guide, striking a match inside his hollowed palm to consult his watch. "It's all down grade now, but we'll meet the wind in the long pass and maybe the snow."

Millicent's heart almost failed her when, as the match went out, she gazed down into the gulf of darkness that opened at her feet, but she answered steadily: "Press on. I must reach the camp by daylight, whatever happens."

They went on. The pace, instead of a scramble, became in places a wild glissade, and no beast of burden but a mountain pack-horse could have kept its footing ten minutes. Dark pines rose up from beneath them and faded back of them, here and there a scarred rock or whitened boulder flitted by, and then Millicent's sight was dimmed by a whirling haze of snow. How long the descent lasted she did not know. She could see nothing through the maze of eddying flakes but that a figure, magnified by them to gigantic proportions, rode close beside her, until they left the cloud behind and wound along the face of a declivity, which dipped into empty blackness close beneath.

Suddenly her horse stumbled; there was a flounder and a shock, and Millicent felt herself sliding very swiftly down a long slope of crusted snow. Hoarse with terror, she screamed once, then something seized and held her fast, and she rose, shaking in every limb, to cling breathless to the guide.

"Hurt bad?" he gasped. "No!—I'm mighty glad. Snow slide must have gouged part of the trail out. Can you hold up a minute while I 'tend to the horse?"

"I don't think I am much hurt," stammered Millicent, whose teeth were chattering, and the man floundering back a few paces, stooped over a dark object that struggled in the snow. She fancied that he fumbled at his belt, after which there was a horrible gurgle, and he returned rubbing his fingers suggestively with a handful of snow.

"Poor brute's done for—I had to settle him," he explained. "It will cost you—but we can fix that when we get through. I'll have to change your saddle, and the sooner we get on the better. Won't keep you five minutes, ma'am."

Millicent felt very cold and sick, for the unfortunate horse still struggled feebly, while the gurgle continued, and she was devoutly thankful when they continued their journey. The traveling was, if possible, more arduous than before. At times they forced a passage through climbing forest, and again over slopes of treacherous shale where a snow slide had plowed a great hollow in the breast of the hill. The puffs of snow which once more met them grew thicker until Millicent was sheeted white all over. At last the man said:

"It can't be far off daylight and I'm mighty thankful. I've lost my bearings, but we're on a trail, which must lead to somewhere, at last. Stick tight to your saddle and I'll bring you through all right, ma'am."

Millicent was too cold to answer. A blast that whirled the drifts up met her in the face, numbing all her faculties and rendering breathing difficult. The hand that held the bridle was stiffened into uselessness. Still, while life pulsed within her, she was going on, and swaying in the saddle, she fixed her eyes ahead.

At last the trail grew level, the snow thinner. In the growing light of day a cluster of roofs loomed up before her, and she made some incoherent answer when her guide confessed:

"I struck the wrong way at the forking of the trail. Here's a ranch, however, and the camp can't be far away. Horse is used up and so am I, but you could get somebody to take Thurston a message."

Some minutes later he lifted Millicent from the saddle, and she leaned against him almost powerless as he pounded on the door. The loud knocking was answered by voices within, the door swung open, and Millicent reeled into a long hall. Two women rose from beside the stove, and, for it was broad daylight now, stared in bewilderment at the strangers.

The guide leaned wearily against the wall, while Millicent, overcome by the change of temperature, stood clutching at the table and swaying to and fro. Then her failing strength deserted her. Somebody who helped her into a chair presently held a cup of warm liquid to her lips. She gulped down a little, and, recovering command of her senses, found herself confronted by Helen Savine. It was a curious meeting, and even then Millicent remembered under what circumstances they had last seen each other. It appeared probable that Helen remembered, too, for she showed no sign of welcome, and Mrs. Thomas Savine, who picked up the fallen cup, watched them intently.

"I see you are surprised to find me here," said Millicent, with a gasp. "I left the railroad last night for Geoffrey Thurston's camp. We lost the trail and one of the horses in the snow, and just managed to reach this ranch. We can drag ourselves no further. I did not know the ranch belonged to you."

"That's about it!" the guide broke in. "This lady has made a journey that would have killed some men—it has pretty well used me up, anyway. I'll sit down in the corner if you don't mind. Can't keep myself right end up much longer."

"Please make yourself comfortable!" said Helen, with a compassionate glance in his direction. "I will tell our Chinaman to see to your horse." She turned towards Millicent, and her face was coldly impassive. "Anyone in distress is welcome to shelter here. You were going to Mr. Thurston's camp?"

Even Mrs. Savine had started at Millicent's first statement, and now she read contemptuous indignation in Helen's eyes. It was certain her niece's voice, though even, was curiously strained.

"Yes!" answered Millicent, rapidly. "I was going to Geoffrey Thurston's camp. It is only failing strength that hinders me from completing the journey. Somebody must warn him at once that he is on no account to leave for Vancouver as he promised me that he would. There is a plot to ruin him during his absence—a traitor among his workmen, I think. At any moment the warning may be too late. He was starting west to-day to call on me."

Millicent was half-dazed and perhaps did not reflect that it was possible to draw a damaging inference from her words. Nevertheless, there was that in Helen's expression which awoke a desire for retaliation.

Helen asked but one question, "You risked your life to tell him this?" and when Millicent bent her head the guide interposed, "You can bet she did, and nearly lost it."

"Then," said the girl, "the warning must not be thrown away. Unfortunately, we have nobody I could send just now. Auntie, you must see to Mrs. Leslie; I will go myself."

"I'm very sorry, miss. If you like I'll do my best, but can hardly promise that I won't fall over on the way," apologized the guide; but Helen hastened out of the room, and now that the strain was over, Millicent lay helpless in her chair. Still, she was conscious of a keen disappointment. After all she had dared and suffered, it was Helen who would deliver the warning.

Thurston was standing knee-deep in ground-up stone and mire, inside a coffer dam about which the river frothed and roared, when a man brought him word that Miss Savine waited for him. He hurried to meet her, and presently halted beside her horse—a burly figure in shapeless slouch hat, with a muddy oilskin hanging from his shoulders above the stained overalls and long boots.

Helen sat still in the saddle, a strange contrast to him, for she was neat and dainty down to the little foot in Indian dressed deerskin against the horse's flank. She showed no sign of pleasure as she returned his greeting, but watched him keenly as she said:

"Mrs. Leslie arrived this morning almost frozen at the ranch. She left the railroad last night to reach your camp, but her guide lost the trail."

The man was certainly startled, but his face betrayed no satisfaction. It's most visible expression was more akin to annoyance.

"Could she not have waited?" he asked impatiently, adding somewhat awkwardly, "Did Mrs. Leslie explain why she wanted to see me so particularly?"

"Yes," was the quick answer. "She has reason to believe that while you journeyed to Vancouver to visit her, an attempt would be made to wreck these workings. She bade me warn you that there is a traitor in your camp."

"Ah," replied Geoffrey, a flush showing through the bronze on his forehead. He thought hastily of all his men and came back to the consciousness of Helen's presence with a start. "It was very good of you to face the rough cold journey, but you cannot return without rest and refreshment," he said with a look that spoke of something more than gratitude. "I will warn my foremen, and when it seems safe will ride back with you."

If Helen had been gifted with a wider knowledge of life she might perhaps have noticed several circumstances that proved Thurston blameless. As it was she had a quick temper, and at first glance facts spoke eloquently against him.

"You cannot," was the cold answer. "The warning was very plain, and considering all that is at stake you must not leave the workings a moment. Neither are any thanks due to me. I am an interested party, and the person who has earned your gratitude is Mrs. Leslie. The day is clear and fine, and I can dispense with an escort."

"You shall not go alone," declared Thurston, doggedly. "You can choose between my company and that of my assistant. And you shall not go until you rest. Further, I must ask you a favor. Will you receive Mrs. Leslie until I have seen her and arranged for her return? There is no married rancher within some distance, and I cannot well bring her here."

"You cannot," agreed Helen averting her eyes. "If only on account of the service she has rendered, Mrs. Leslie is entitled to such shelter as we can offer her, as long as it appears necessary."

"Thanks!" said Thurston, gravely. "You relieve me of a difficulty." Then, stung by the girl's ill-concealed disdain into one of his former outbreaks, he gripped the horse's bridle, and backed the beast so that he and its rider were more fully face to face.

"Am I not harassed sufficiently? Good Lord! do you think——" he began.

"I have neither the right nor desire to inquire into your motives," responded Helen distantly. "We will, as I say, shelter Mrs. Leslie, and, since you insist, will you ask your assistant to accompany me?"

Geoffrey, raising his hat a moment, swung round upon his heel, and blew a silver whistle.

"Tom," he said to the man who came running up, "tell John to get some coffee and the nicest things he can in a hurry for Miss Savine. Straighten up my office room, and lay them out there. English Jim is to ride back with Miss Savine when she is ready. Send a mounted man to Allerton's to bring Black in, see that no man you wouldn't trust your last dollar to lay's hand on a machine. That would stop half the work in camp? It wouldn't—confound you—you know what I mean. Call in all explosives from the shot-firing gang. Nobody's to slip for a moment out of sight of his section foreman."

Helen heard the crisp sharp orders as she rode up the hill, and glanced once over her shoulder. She had often noticed how the whole strength of Geoffrey's character could rise to face a crisis. Still, appearances were terribly against him.

Geoffrey, taking breath for a moment, scowled savagely at the river.

"If ever there was an unfortunate devil—but I suppose it can't be helped. Damn the luck that dogs me!" he ejaculated as he turned to issue more specific commands.



CHAPTER XXVII

MRS. SAVINE SPEAKS HER MIND

Millicent slept brokenly while Helen carried her message, and awakening feverish, felt relieved to discover that the girl was still absent. Miss Savine was younger than herself, and of much less varied experience, but the look in the girl's eyes hurt her, nevertheless.

"I am ashamed to force myself upon you," she said to Mrs. Savine, who had shown her many small courtesies, "but I am afraid I cannot manage the journey back to the railroad to-day. I must also see Mr. Thurston before I leave for England, and it would be a great favor if I could have the interview here."

"We are glad to have you with us," said Mrs. Savine, who was of kindly nature and fancied she saw her opportunity. "Yes, I just mean it. The journey has tried you so much that you are not fit for another now. Besides, I have heard so much about you, that I want a talk with you."

"You have probably heard nothing that makes this visit particularly welcome," answered Millicent, bitterly, and the elder lady smiled.

"I guess folks are apt to make the most of the worst points in all of us," she observed. "But that is not what we are going to talk about. You are an old friend of a man we are indebted to, and, just because I believe there's no meanness in Geoffrey Thurston, you are very welcome to the best that we can do for you. I will ask him over to meet you."

Millicent flushed. Under the circumstances she was touched by the speaker's sincerity, and grateful for the way she expressed herself. Perhaps it was this which prompted her to an almost involuntary outpouring of confidence.

"I am the woman who should have married him," she said simply.

Mrs. Savine merely nodded, and dipped her needle somewhat blindly into the embroidery on her knee before she replied: "I had guessed it already. You missed a very good husband, my dear. I don't want to force your confidence, but I imagine that you have some distress to bear, and I might help you. I have seen a good deal of trouble in my time."

Millicent was unstable by nature. She was also excited and feverish. Afterwards she wondered why a kindly word from a woman she knew so slightly should excite in her such a desire for advice and sympathy. In spite of her occasional brusqueries, it was hard for anyone to say no to Mrs. Savine. So Millicent answered, with a sigh:

"I know it now when it is too late—no one knows it better. You do well to believe in Geoffrey Thurston."

Mrs. Savine looked at her very keenly, then nodded. "I believe in you, too. There! I guess you can trust me."

Millicent bent her head, and her eyes were misty. A raw wound, which the frost had irritated, marred the delicate curve of her upper lip. It became painfully visible.

"It is only fit that I should tell you, since I am your guest," she said, touching the scar with one finger. "That is the mark of my husband's hand, and I am leaving him forever because I would not connive at Geoffrey's ruin. Geoffrey is acting as trustee for my property, and I cannot leave for England without consulting him. So much is perhaps due to you, and—because of your kindness I should not like you to think too ill of me—I will tell you the rest. To begin with, Geoffrey has never shown me anything but kindness."

Mrs. Savine gently patted the speaker's arm, and Millicent related what had led up to her journey, or part of it. When she had finished, the elder lady commented:

"You are doing a risky thing; but I can't quite blame you, and if I could, I would not do it now. You will stay right here until Geoffrey has fixed up all plans for your journey, and you can trust me to be kind to you. Still, there's one favor I'm going to ask. I want you to let me tell my niece as much of what you have told me as I think desirable. Remember, Geoffrey has been good to you."

For a moment Millicent's face grew hard, and her eyes defiant. She smiled sadly as she answered: "It is his due, and can make no difference now. Tell her what seems best."

Meanwhile, Geoffrey was busy in the canyon camp. With Black and Mattawa Tom beside him, he stood holding as symbol, both of equality and authority, a bright ax in his hand, while driller, laborer, and machine-tender, wondering greatly, were passed in review before him. Black had been boarded with a trust rancher some distance from the camp. At last a certain rock driller passed in turn, and Tom from Mattawa explained: "He's a friend of Walla Jake, and as I told you, the last man we put on."

"That's the blame reptile who backed up Shackleby's story at the Blue Bird mine," cried Black, excitedly. "If there's anyone up to mischief, you can bet all you've got he's the man."

"Stop there, you!" Geoffrey's voice was sharp and stern. "Cut him down if he feels for a revolver or tries to make a break of it, section foreman. Come here, close in behind him, you two."

After a swift glance over his shoulder the man who was summoned advanced, scowling darkly. He sullenly obeyed Geoffrey's second command, "Stand there—now a few steps aside," leaving his footprints clearly outlined in a patch of otherwise untrodden snow.

"Good!" observed Geoffrey. "Lay your template [Transcriber's note: corrected from "templet"] on those marks, Tom." After the foreman had produced a paper pattern which fitted them, Thurston added:

"We're going to make a prisoner of you, and jail you ourselves, until we can get a formal warrant. What for? Well, you're going to be tried for conspiracy among the other things. You see that pattern? It fits the foot of a man who went out one night with a spy Shackleby sent over to see how and when you would play the devil with our work in the canyon. It even shows the stump of the filed-off creeper-spike on your right boot. There's no use protesting—a friend of yours here will help us to trace your career back to the finding of the Blue Bird mine. Take him along and lock him into the galvanized store shed."

The prisoner was taken away, and Geoffrey turned to his foreman.

"He was in the drilling gang, Tom?"

"Juss so! Working under the wall bed of the canyon."

"That lets some light on to the subject. You can dismiss the others. Come with me, Tom."

Twenty minutes later Geoffrey stood among the boulders that the shrunken river had left exposed near the foot of a giant cliff which, instead of overhanging, thrust forward a slanting spur into the rush of water, and so formed a bend. It was one of the main obstacles Geoffrey, who wondered at the formation, had determined to remove by the simultaneous shock of several heavy blasting charges. To that end a gang of men had long been drilling deep holes into the projecting spur, and on the preceding day charges of high explosives had been sunk in most of them with detonators and fuses ready coupled for connection to the igniting gear. Geoffrey stood upon a boulder and looked up at the tremendous face of rock which, rising above the spur, held up the hill slope above. The stratification was looser than usual, and several mighty masses had fallen from it into the river. There were also crannies at its feet.

"You've seen all the drilled holes. Anything strike you yet?" inquired Mattawa Tom.

"Yes," was the answer. "It occurs to me that French Louis said he couldn't tally out all the sticks of giant powder that he'd stowed away a week or two ago. I think you foolishly told him he couldn't count straight."

"I did," admitted Tom from Mattawa. "Louis ain't great at counting, and he allowed he'd never let go of the key to the powder magazine."

"I fancy a smart mechanic could make a key that would do as well," remarked Geoffrey. "It strikes me, also, after considering the strata yonder, that, if sufficient shots were fired in those crannies, they would bring the whole cliff and the hillside above it down on top of us—you'll remember I cautioned you to drill well clear of the rock face itself? Now, if coupled fuses were led from the shot holes we filled to those we didn't, so that both would fire simultaneously, nobody afterwards would find anything suspicious under several thousand tons of debris. I'm inclined to think there are such fuses. Take your shovel, and we'll look for them."

They worked hard for half an hour, and then Geoffrey chuckled. Lifting what looked like a stout black cord from among the rubble where it was carefully hidden, Mattawa Tom said: "This time I guess you've struck it dead."

"Follow the thing up," Geoffrey commanded.

This was done, and further searching revealed the charges for which they were searching, skillfully concealed in the crannies. Geoffrey's face was grim as he said:

"It was planned well. They would have piled half yonder shoulder of the range into the canyon if they had got their devilish will. Pull up every fuse, and fix fresh detonators to all the charges. Change every man in that gang, and never leave this spot except when the section boss replaces you, until we're ready for firing. Thank Heaven that will be in a few more days, and my nerves may hold out that long. I've hardly had an hour's sleep in the last week, Tom."

While Geoffrey was acting in accordance with the warning she had delivered, Helen was on her way back to the ranch with his assistant as her escort. Helen had not forgotten that it was her remonstrance which had originally obtained a humble appointment for English Jim. He had several times visited the ranch with messages, and was accordingly invited to enter when they reached the house. He recognized Mrs. Leslie at once, but he could be discreet, and, warned by something in her manner, addressed no word to her until he found opportunity for a few moments' private speech before leaving.

"You remember me, I see," Millicent said, and English Jim bowed.

"I do; perhaps because I have reason to. Though most reluctant to say so, I lost a valuable paper the last time I was in your presence, and that paper was afterwards used against my employer. Pardon me for speaking so plainly; you said you were a friend of Mr. Thurston's."

"You need not be diffident," replied Millicent, checking him with a wave of her hand. "Suppose it was I who found the drawing? You would be willing to keep silence in return for——"

It was English Jim who interrupted now. "In return for your solemn promise to render no more assistance to our enemies. I do not forget your kindness, and hate the painful necessity of speaking so to you, but I am Thurston's man, soul and body."

"I ask your pardon," said Millicent. "Will you believe me if I say that I lately ran some risk to bring Mr. Thurston a much-needed warning? I am going to England in a day or two, and shall never come back again. Therefore, you can rely upon my promise."

"Implicitly," returned English Jim. "You must have had some reason I cannot guess for what you did. That sounds like presumption, doesn't it? But you can count upon my silence, madam."

"You are a good man." Millicent impulsively held out her hand to him. "I have met very few so loyal or so charitable. May I wish you all prosperity in your career?"

English Jim merely bowed as he went out, and Millicent's eyes grew dim as she thought of her treachery to Geoffrey.

"There are good men in the world after all, though it has been my misfortune to chiefly come across the bad," she admitted to herself.

Darkness had fallen when Thurston rode up to the ranch. He passed half an hour alone with Millicent and went away without speaking to anyone else. After he had gone Millicent said to Mrs. Savine:

"I start for England as soon as possible, and Mr. Thurston is going to the railroad with me. I shall never return to Canada."

Pleading fatigue, she retired early, and for a time Mrs. Savine and Helen sat silently in the glow of the great hearth upon which immense logs were burning. There was no other light in the room, and each flicker of the fire showed that Helen's face was more than usually serious.

"Did you know that it was Mrs. Leslie Geoffrey should have married?" asked Mrs. Savine at length.

"No," answered Helen, flushing. With feeling she added. "Perhaps I ought to have guessed it. She leaves shortly, does the not? It will be a relief. She must be a wicked woman, but please don't talk of her."

"That is just what I'm going to do," declared her aunt, gravely. "I wouldn't guarantee that she is wholly good, but I blame her poison-mean husband more than her. Anyway, she is better than you suppose her."

"I made no charge against her, and am only glad she is going," said Helen Savine. Mrs. Savine smiled shrewdly.

"Well, I am going to show you there is nothing in that charge. Not quite logical, is it, but sit still there and listen to me."

Helen listened, at first very much against her will, presently she grew half-convinced, and at last wholly so. She blushed crimson as she said:

"May I be forgiven for thinking evil—but such things do happen, and though I several times made myself believe, even against, the evidence of my eyes, that I was wrong, appearances were horribly against her. I am tired and will say good-night, auntie."

"Not yet," interposed Mrs. Savine, laying a detaining grasp upon her. "Sit still, my dear, I'm only beginning. Appearances don't always count for much. Now, there's Mrs. Christopher who started in to copy my elixir. Oh, yes, it was like it in smell and color, but she nearly killed poor Christopher with it."

"She said it cured him completely," commented Helen, hoping to effect a diversion; but Mrs. Savine would not be put off.

"We won't argue about that, though there'll be a coroner called in the next time she makes a foolish experiment. Now I'm going to give my husband's confidences away. Hardly fair to Tom, but I'll do it, because it seems necessary, and the last time I didn't go quite far enough. To begin with. Did you know the opposition wanted to buy Geoffrey over, paying him two dollars for every one he could have made out of your father?"

"No," answered Helen, starting. "It was very loyal of him to refuse. Why did he do so?"

Mrs. Savine smiled good-humoredly. "I guess you think that's due to your dignity, but you don't fool me. Look into your mirror, Helen, if you really want to know. Did you hear that he put every dollar he'd made in Canada into the scheme? Of course you didn't; he made Tom promise he would never tell you. Besides—but I forgot, I must not mention that."

"Please spare me any more, auntie," pleaded Helen, who was overcome by a sudden realization of her own injustice and absolute selfishness.

"No mercy this time," was the answer, given almost genially. "Like the elixir which doesn't taste pleasant, it's good for you. You didn't know, either, for the same reason, that not long ago Tom was badly scared for fear he'd have to let the whole thing go for lack of money. It would have been the end of Julius Savine if he had been forced to give up this great enterprise."

"I never thought things were so bad, but how does it concern Mr. Thurston?" Helen questioned her aunt in a voice that was trembling.

"Geoffrey straightened out all the financial affairs in just this way. A relative in England left an estate to be divided between him and Mrs. Leslie. There was enough to keep him safe for life, if he'd let it lie just where it was, but he didn't. No, he sold out all that would have earned him a life income for any price he could, and turned over every cent of it to help your father. Now I've about got through, but I've one question to ask you. Would the man who did all that—you can see why—be likely to fool with another man's wife, even if it was the handsome Mrs. Leslie?"

"No," said Helen, whose cheeks, which had grown pallid, flushed like a blush rose. "I am glad you told me, auntie, but I feel I shall never have the courage to look that man in the face again."

Mrs. Savine smiled, though her eyes glistened in the firelight as she laid a thin hand on one of Helen's, which felt burning hot as the fingers quivered within her grasp.

"You will, or that will hurt him more than all," she replied. "It wasn't easy to tell you this, but I've seen too many lives ruined for the want of a little common-sense talking—and I figure Jacob wouldn't come near beating Geoffrey Thurston."

Helen rose abruptly. "Auntie, you will see to father—he has been better lately—for just a little while, will not you?" she asked. "Mrs. Crighton has invited me so often to visit her, and I really need a change. This valley has grown oppressive, and I must have time to think."

"Yes," assented Mrs. Savine. "But you must stand by your promise to fire the final shot."

The door closed, and Mrs. Savine, removing her spectacles, wiped both them and her eyes as she remarked: "I hope the Almighty will forgive a meddlesome old woman for interfering, knowing she means well."



CHAPTER XXVIII

LESLIE STEPS OUT

Henry Leslie did not return home at noon on the day following the altercation with his wife. Millicent had an ugly temper, but she would cool down if he gave her time, he said to himself. In the evening he fell in with two business acquaintances from a mining district, who were visiting the city for the purpose of finding diversion and they invited him to assist them in their search for amusement. Leslie, though unprincipled, lacked several qualities necessary for a successful rascal, and, oppressed by the fear of Shackleby's displeasure should Thurston return to the mountains prematurely, and uncertain what to do, was willing to try to forget his perplexities for an hour or two.

The attempt was so far successful that he went home at midnight, somewhat unsteadily, a good many dollars poorer than when he set out. Trying the door of his wife's room, he found it locked. He did not suspect that it had been locked on the outside and that Millicent had thrown the key away. He was, however, rather relieved than otherwise by the discovery of the locked door, and, sleeping soundly, wakened later than usual next morning. Millicent, however, was neither at the breakfast-table nor in her own room when he pried the door open. He saw that some garments and a valise were missing, and decided that she had favored certain friends with her company, and, returning mollified, would make peace again, as had happened before. Still, he was uneasy until he espied her writing-case with the end of a letter protruding. Reading the letter, he discovered it to be an invitation to Victoria. He noticed on the blotter the reversed impression of an addressed envelope, which showed that she had answered the invitation. Two days passed, and, hearing nothing, he grew dissatisfied again, and drafted a diplomatic telegram to the friends in Victoria. It happened that Shackleby was in his office when the answer arrived.

"Has Thurston come into town yet? You told me you saw your way to keep him here," said Shackleby. "Didn't you mention he had the handling of a small legacy left Mrs. Leslie?"

"It is strange, but he has not arrived," was the answer. "My wife is an old friend of his, and I had counted on her help in detaining him, but, unfortunately, she considered it necessary to accept an invitation to Victoria somewhat suddenly."

"I should hardly have fancied Thurston was an old friend of—yours," Shackleby remarked with a carelessness which almost blunted the sneer. "I'm also a little surprised at what you tell me, because I saw Mrs. Leslie hurrying along to the Atlantic express. She couldn't book that way to Victoria."

"You must have been mistaken," said Leslie, who turned towards a clerk holding out a telegraphic envelope. He ripped it open and read the enclosure with a smothered ejaculation.

"Can't understand your wire. Mrs. Leslie not here. Wrote saying she could not come."

"Excuse the liberty. I believe I have a right to inspect all correspondence," observed Shackleby, coolly leaning over and picking up the message. Then he looked straight at Leslie, and there was a moment's silence before he asked, "How much does Mrs. Leslie know about your business?"

"I don't know," answered the anxious man in desperation. "I had to tell her a little so that she could help me."

"So I guessed!" commented Shackleby. "Now, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you can't afford to quarrel with me if I do. You're coming straight with me to the depot to find out where Mrs. Leslie bought a ticket to."

"I'll see you hanged first," broke out Leslie. "Isn't it enough that you presume to read my private correspondence? I'll suffer no interference with my domestic affairs."

Shackleby laughed contemptuously. "You'll just come along instead of blustering—there's not an ounce of real grit in you. This is no time for sentiment, and you have admitted that Mrs. Leslie was on good terms with Thurston. If she has warned him, one of us at least will have to make a record break out of this country. If he doesn't it won't be the divorce court he'll figure in."

Leslie went without further protest, and Shackleby looked at him significantly when the booking-clerk said, "If I remember right, Mrs. Leslie bought a ticket for Thompson's. It's a flag station at the head of the new road that's to be driven into the Orchard Valley."

"I guess that's enough," remarked Shackleby. "You and I are going there by the first train too. Oh, yes, I'm coming with you whether you like it or not, for it strikes me our one chance is to bluff Thurston into a bargain for the cessation of hostilities. It's lucky he's supposed to be uncommonly short of money."

Geoffrey Thurston, Mrs. Leslie, and Thomas Savine of course, could not know of this conversation, but the woman was anxious as they rode together into sight of the little flag station shortly before the Atlantic express was due. When the others dismounted, Thomas Savine, who had been summoned by telegram from Vancouver, remained discreetly behind. It was very cold, darkness was closing down on the deep hollow among the hills, and some little distance up the ascending line, a huge freight locomotive was waiting with a string of cars behind it in a side track. Thurston pointed to the fan-shaped blaze of the great head lamp.

"We have timed it well. They're expecting your train now," he said.

"I am glad," was Millicent's answer. "I shall feel easier when I am once upon the way, for all day I have been nervously afraid that Harry might arrive or something unexpected might happen to detain me. There will be only time to catch the Allan boat, you say, and once the train leaves this station nobody could overtake me?"

"Of course not!" answered Geoffrey, reassuringly. "It is perhaps natural that you should be apprehensive, but there is no reason for it. Whether you are doing right or wrong I dare not presume to judge, and, under the circumstances, I wish there had been somebody else to counsel you; but if your husband has treated you cruelly and you are in fear of him, I cannot venture to dissuade you. You will write to me when you have settled your plans?"

"Yes," she promised. After a moment's pause, she went on: "I have hardly been able to consider the position yet, but I will never go back to Harry. My trustees must either help me to fight him or bribe him not to molest me. It is a hateful position, but though I have suffered a great deal there are things I cannot countenance."

The hoot of a whistle came ringing up the valley, the light of another head lamp, growing brighter, flickered among the firs, and Millicent looked up at her companion as she said:

"I may never see you again, Geoffrey, but I cannot go without asking you to forgive me. You do not know, and I dare not tell you, in how many ways I have injured you. I would like to think that you do not cherish any ill-will against me."

"You may be quite sure of it," was the answer, and Geoffrey smiled upon her. "What I shall remember most clearly is how much you risked to warn me, and that the safe completion of the work I have set my heart on is due to you. We will forget all the unpleasant things that have happened in the past and meet as good friends next time, Millicent."

The woman's voice trembled a little as she replied: "I hope when one by one you hear of the unpleasant things you will be charitable. But a last favor—you will not tell Harry where I have gone until I am safely on my way to England?"

"No," promised Geoffrey. "You can depend upon that. I have not forgiven your husband, but the train is coming in and it will only stop a few seconds."

With couplings clashing the long cars lurched in. Geoffrey hurried Millicent into one of them. He felt his hand grasped fervently, and fancied he saw a tear glisten in Millicent's eyes by the light of the flashing lamps. Then the great engine snorted, and he sprang down from the vestibule footboard as the train rolled out. Turning back towards the station to join Thomas Savine, he found himself confronted by two men who had just alighted.

Their surprise was mutual, but Thomas Savine, who stood beside a box just hurled out of the baggage car, had his wits about him. "Here's one case, Geoffrey. The conductor thinks that some fool must have labelled the others wrong, and they'll come on by first freight," he said.

This was an accurate statement, and for Millicent's sake Geoffrey was grateful that his comrade should make it so opportunely. It accounted for his presence at the station.

"It can't be helped," he said, and then turned stiffly towards Shackleby and Henry Leslie, who waited between him and the roadway.

"We want a few words with you, but didn't expect to find you here," abruptly remarked Shackleby. "Is there any place fit to sit in at the saloon yonder?"

"I really don't know," Geoffrey replied. "Having no time to waste in conversation, neither do I care. If you have anything to say to me you can say it—very briefly—here."

Shackleby pinched the cigar he was smoking. Laying his hand on Leslie's shoulder warningly, he whispered, "Keep still, you fool."

"I don't know that I can condense what I have to say," he answered airily, addressing Thurston. "Fact is, in the first place, and before Mr. Leslie asks a question, I want to know whether we—that is I—can still come to terms with you. It's tolerably well-known that my colleagues are, so to speak, men of straw, and individually I figure it might be better for both of us if we patched up a compromise. I can't sketch out the rest of my programme in the open air, but, as a general idea, what do you think, Mr. Savine?"

"That your suggestion comes rather late in the day," was the answer.

Shackleby was silent for a moment, though, for it was quite dark now that the train had gone. Savine could not be quite certain whether he moved against Leslie by accident or deliberately hustled him a few paces away. Geoffrey, however, felt certain that neither had seen Millicent, nor, thanks to Savine, suspected that she was on board the departing cars. Just then a deep-toned whistle vibrated across the pines, somebody waved a lantern between the rails, and the panting of the freight locomotive's pump became silent. The track led down grade past the station towards the coast.

"Better late than never," said Shackleby. "My hand's a good one still. I'm not sure I won't call you."

"To save time I'll show you mine a little sooner than I meant to do, and you'll see the game's up," replied Geoffrey, grimly. "It may prevent you from worrying me during the next week or two, and you can't well profit by it. I've got Black, who is quite ready to go into court at any time, where you can't get at him. I've got the nearest magistrate's warrant executed on the person of your other rascal, and Black will testify as to his record, which implies the throwing of a sidelight upon your own. No doubt, to save himself, the other man will turn against you. In addition, if it's necessary, which I hardly think possible, I have even more damaging testimony. I have sworn a statement before the said magistrate for the Crown-lands authorities, and purpose sending a copy to each of your directors individually. That ought to be sufficient, and I have no more time to waste with you."

"But you have me to settle with, or I'll blast your name throughout the province if I drag my own in the mud. Where's my wife?" snarled Leslie, wrenching himself free from his confederate's restraining grasp.

"If you're bent on making a fool of yourself, and I guess you can't help it, go on your own way," interposed Shackleby, with ironical contempt.

"I have no intention of telling you where Mrs. Leslie is," asserted Geoffrey. "You will hear from her when she considers it advisable to write."

A whir of driver wheels slipping on the rails came down the track, followed by a shock of couplings tightening and the snorting of a heavy locomotive, but none of the party noticed it.

"She was here; you can't deny it," shouted Leslie, who had yielded to a fit of rabid fury. He was not a courageous man, and had been held in check by fear of Shackleby, but there was some spirit in him, and, perhaps because he had injured Thurston, had always hated him. Now when his case seemed desperate, with the boldness of a rat driven into a corner, he determined to tear the hand that crushed him.

"I'll take action against you. I'll blazon it in the press. I'll close every decent house in the province against you," he continued, working himself up into a frenzy. "Where have you hidden my wife? By Heaven, I'll make you tell me."

"Take care!" warned Geoffrey, straightening himself and thrusting one big hand behind his back. "It is desperately hard for me to keep my fingers off you now, but if you say another word against Mrs. Leslie, look to yourself. Shackleby, you have heard him; now for the woman's sake listen to me. I have never wronged your wife by thought or word, Leslie, and the greatest indiscretion she was ever guilty of was marrying you."

"You have hidden her!" almost screamed the desperate man. "I'll have satisfaction one way if you're too strong for me another. Liar, traitor, sed——"

Geoffrey strode forward before the last word was completed, Leslie flung up one hand, but Shackleby struck it aside in time, and something that fell from it clinked with a metallic sound. Exactly how what followed really happened was never quite certain. Leslie, blind with rage, either tripped over his confederate's outstretched foot, or lost his balance, for just as a blaze of light beat upon the group, he staggered, clutched at Thurston, and missing him, stepped over the edge of the platform and fell full length between the rails.

There was a yell from a man with a lantern and a sudden hoot from the whistle of the big locomotive. Savine's face turned white under the glare of the headlight. With a reckless leap Geoffrey followed his enemy. Only conscious of the man's peril, he acted upon impulse without reflection.

"Good God! They'll both be killed!" exclaimed Shackleby.

Thurston was strong of limb and every muscle in him had been toughened by strenuous toil, but Leslie had struck his head on the rails and lay still, stunned and helpless. The lift was heavy for the man who strove to raise him, and though the brakes screamed along the line of cars the locomotive was almost upon them. Standing horrified, and, without power to move, the two spectators saw Geoffrey still gripping his enemy's shoulders, heave himself erect in a supreme effort, then the cow-catcher on the engine's front struck them both, and Savine felt, rather than heard, a sickening sound as the huge machine swept resistlessly on. Afterward he declared that the suspense which followed while the long box-cars rolled by was horrible, for nothing could be seen, and the two men shivered with the uncertainty as to what might be happening beneath the grinding wheels.

When the last car passed both leapt down upon the track, and a man joined them holding a lantern aloft. Savine stooped over Thurston, who lay just clear of the rails, looking strangely limp.

"Another second would have done it—did I heave him clear?" he gasped. He tried to raise himself by one hand but fell back with a groan.

"I guess not," answered a railroad employe, holding the lantern higher, and while two others ran up the tracks, the light fell upon a shapeless, huddled heap. "That one has passed his checks in, certain," the holder of the lantern announced.

Within ten minutes willing assistants from the tiny settlement were on the spot and stretchers were improvised. Savine had bidden the agent telegraph for a doctor, and the two victims were slowly carried towards the New Eldorado saloon. When they were gently laid down an elderly miner, familiar with accidents, pointing to Thurston after making a hasty examination said:

"This one has got his arm broken, collar-bone gone, too, but if there's nothing busted inside he'll come round. The other one has been stone dead since the engine hit him."

There were further proffers of help from several of his comrades, who, as usual with their kind, possessed some knowledge of rude surgery. When all that was possible had been done for the living, Savine was drawn aside by Shackleby.

"This is what he dropped on the platform—I picked it up quietly," he said, holding out an ivory-handled revolver. "No use letting any ugly tales get round or raking up that other story, is it? I don't know whether Thurston induced Leslie's wife to run off or not—from what I have heard of him I hardly think he did—but one may as well let things simmer down gracefully."

"I am grateful for your thoughtfulness," replied Savine. "Probably it is more than he would have done for you. This is hardly the time to discuss such questions, but what has happened can't affect our position. Still, personally, I may not feel inclined to push merely vindictive measures against you."

"I didn't think it would change matters," said Shackleby, with a shrug. "If I should be wanted I'm open to describe the—accident—and let other details slide. The railroad fellows suspect nothing. Thurston has made your side a strong one, and in a way I don't blame him. If he had stood in with me, we'd have smashed up your brother completely."



CHAPTER XXIX

A REVELATION

Two persons were strangely affected and stirred to unexpected action by the news of Thurston's injury, and the first of these was Julius Savine. It was late next night when his brother's messenger arrived at the ranch, for Thomas had thought of nothing but the sufferer's welfare at first, and Savine lay, a very frail, wasted figure, dozing by the stove. His sister-in-law sat busy over some netting close at hand. Both were startled when a man, who held out a soiled envelope, came in abruptly. Savine read the message and tossed the paper across to Mrs. Savine before he rose shakily to his feet.

"I would sooner have heard anything than that Geoffrey was badly hurt," he exclaimed with a quaver in his voice. To the Chinaman, who brought the stranger in, he gave the order, "Get him some supper and tell Fontaine I want him at once."

"Poor Geoffrey! We must hope it is not serious," cried Mrs. Savine with visible distress. "But sit down. You can't help him, and may bring on a seizure by exciting yourself, Julius."

Savine, who did not answer her, remained standing until the hired hand whom he had summoned, entered. "Ride your hardest to the camp and tell Foreman Tom I'm coming over to take charge until Mr. Thurston, who has met with an accident, recovers," he said. "He's to send a spare horse and a couple of men to help the sleigh over the washed-out trail. Come back at your best pace. I must reach the canyon before morning."

"Are you mad, Julius?" asked his sister-in-law when the men retired. "It's even chances the excitement or the journey will kill you."

"Then I must take the chances," declared Savine. "While there was a man I could trust to handle things, I let this weakness master me. Now the poor fellow's helpless, somebody must take hold before chaos ensues, and I haven't quite forgotten everything. You'll have to nurse Geoffrey, and it's no use trying to scare me. Fill my big flask with the old brandy and get my furs out."

Mrs. Savine saw further remonstrance would be useless. She considered her brother-in-law more fit for his grave than to complete a great undertaking, but he was clearly bent on having his way. When she hinted something of her thoughts, he answered that even so he would rather die at work in the canyon than tamely in his bed. So shivering under a load of furs he departed in the sleigh, and after several narrow escapes of an upset, reached the camp in the dusk of a nipping morning.

"Help me out. Mr. Thurston, I am sorry to say, has met with a bad accident, and you and I have got to finish this work without him," he said to the anxious foreman. "From what he told me I can count upon your doing the best that's in you, Tom."

"I won't go back on nothing Mr. Thurston said," was the quiet answer; but when Tom from Mattawa left Savine, whose nerveless fingers spilled half the contents of the silver cup he strove to fill, gasping beside the stove in Thurston's quarters, he gravely shook his head.

Several days elapsed after Helen's departure for Vancouver before Mrs. Savine, who had gone at once to the scene of the accident, considered it judicious to inform her of Geoffrey's condition, and so it happened that one evening Helen accompanied her hostess to witness the performance of a Western dramatic company. Despite second-rate acting the play was a pretty one, and each time the curtain went down Helen found the combination of bright light, pretty dresses, laughter and merry voices strangely pleasant after her isolation. At times her thoughts would wander back to the ice-bound canyon and the man who had pitted himself against the thundering river in its gloomy depths. Perhaps the very contrast between this scene of brightness and luxury and the savage wilderness emphasized the self-abnegation he had shown. She knew now that he had toiled beyond most men's strength, when he might have rested, and casting away what would have insured him a life of ease, had voluntarily chosen an almost hopeless struggle for her sake. Few women had been wooed so, she reflected, and then she endeavored to confine her attention to the play, for as yet, though both proud and grateful, she could not admit that she had been won.

Presently the son of her hostess, who joined the party between the acts, handed her a note. "I am sorry I could not get here before, but found this waiting, and thought I'd better bring it along. I hope it's not a summons of recall," he said.

Helen opened the envelope, and the hurriedly-written lines grew blurred before her eyes as she read, "I am grieved to say that Geoffrey has been seriously injured by an accident. The doctor has, however, some hopes of his recovery, though he won't speak definitely yet. If you can find an intelligent woman in Vancouver you could trust to help me nurse him, send her along. Didn't write before because——"

"What is it? No bad news of your father, I hope," her hostess asked, and the son, a fine type of the young Western citizen, noticed the dismay in Helen's face as she answered:

"Nothing has happened to my father. His partner has been badly hurt. I must return to-morrow, and, as it is a tiresome journey, if you will excuse me, I would rather not sit out the play."

The young man noticed that Helen seemed to shiver, while her voice was strained. He discreetly turned away his head, though he had seen sufficient to show him that certain lately-renewed hopes were vain.

"Miss Savine has not been used to gayety of late, and I warned her she must take it quietly, especially with that ride through the ranges before her. This place is unsufferably hot, and you can trust me to see her safe home, mother," he said.

Helen's grateful, "Thank you!" was reward enough, but it was in an unenviable humor that the young man returned to the theater when she sought refuge in her own room.

Solitude appeared a vital necessity, for at last Helen understood. Ever since Thurston first limped, footsore and hungry, into her life she had been alternately attracted and repelled by him. His steadfast patience and generosity had almost melted her at times, but from the beginning, circumstances had seemed to conspire against the man, shadowing him with suspicion, and forcing him into opposition to her will. Mrs. Savine's story had made his unswerving loyalty plain, and Helen had begun to see that she would with all confidence trust her life to him; but she was proud, and knowing how she had misjudged him, hesitated still. As long as a word or a smile could bring him to her feet she could postpone the day of reckoning at least until his task was finished, and thus allow him to prove his devotion to the uttermost test.

Now, however, fate had intervened, tearing away all disguise, and her eyes were opened. She knew that without him the future would be empty, and the revelation stirred every fiber of her being. Growing suddenly cold with a shock of fear she remembered that she had perhaps already lost him forever. It might be that another more solemn summons had preceded her own, and that she might call and Geoffrey Thurston would not hear! He had won his right to rest by work well done, but she—it now seemed that a lifetime would be too short to mourn him. Helen shivered at the thought, then she felt as if she were suffocating. Turning the light low, she flung the long window open. Beyond the electric glare of the city, with its shapeless pile of roofs and towering poles, the mountains rose, serenely majestic, in robes of awful purity. They were beckoning her she felt. The man whom she had learned to love too late lay among them, perhaps with the strong hands that had toiled for her folded in peace at last, and, living or dead, she must go to him. She remembered that the message said,—"Hire a capable woman in Vancouver," and it brought her a ray of comfort. If the time was not already past she would ask nothing better than to wait on him herself. Presently, when there was a hum of voices below, Helen, white of face but steady in nerves, descended to meet her hostess.

"I must go back to-morrow, and as it is a fatiguing journey you will not mind my retiring early," she said to excuse her absence from the supper party that was assembled after the play.

On reaching the railroad settlement Helen found the doctor in charge of Thurston willing to avail himself of her assistance. The physician had barely held his own in several encounters with her aunt, whom he suspected of endeavoring to administer unauthorized preparations to his patient, while on her part Mrs. Savine freely admitted that at her age she could not sit up all night forever. So Helen was installed, and it was midnight when she commenced her first watch.

"You will call me at once if the patient wakes complaining of any pain," said the surgeon. "Do I think he is out of danger? Well, he is very weak yet, my dear young lady, but if you will carry out my orders, I fancy we may hope for the best. But you must remember that a nurse's chief qualifications are presence of mind and a perfect serenity."

"I will not fail you," promised Helen, choking back a sob of relief; and, trusting that the doctor did not see her quivering face, she added softly, "Heaven is merciful!"

She had been prepared for a change, but she was startled at the sight of Thurston. He lay with blanched patches in the paling bronze on his face, which had grown hollow and lined by pain. Still he was sleeping soundly, and did not move when she bent over him. She stooped further and touched his forehead with her lips, rose with the hot blood pulsing upwards from her neck, and stood trembling, while, either dreaming or stirred by some influence beyond man's knowledge, the sleeper smiled, murmuring, "Helen!"

It was daylight when Thurston awakened, and stared as if doubtful of his senses at his new nurse, until, approaching the frame of canvas whereon he lay, Helen, with a gentle touch, caressingly brushed the hair from his forehead.

"I have come to help you to get better. We cannot spare you, Geoffrey," she said simply.

The sick man asked no question nor betrayed further astonishment. He looked up gratefully into the eyes which met his own for a moment and grew downcast again. "Then I shall certainly cheat the doctors yet," he declared.

Under the circumstances his words were distinctly commonplace, but speech is not the sole means of communion between mind and mind, and for the present both were satisfied. Helen laughed and blushed happily when, as by an after thought, Geoffrey added, "It is really very kind of you."

"You must not talk," she admonished with a half-shy assumption of authority, strangely at variance with her former demeanor. "I shall call in my aunt with the elixir if you do."

Geoffrey smiled, but the brightness of his countenance was not accounted for by his answer: "I believe she has treated me with it once or twice already, and I still survive. In fact, I am inclined to think the doctor caught her red-handed on one occasion, and there was trouble."

After that Geoffrey recovered vigor rapidly, and the days passed quickly for Helen as she watched over him in the dilapidated frame house to which he had been removed after the accident. No word of love passed between them, nor was any word necessary. The man, still weak and languid, appeared blissfully contented to enjoy the present, and Helen, who was glad to see him do so, abided her time.

Meanwhile, supported by sheer force of will and a nervous exaltation, that would vanish utterly when the need for it ceased, Julius Savine, leaning on his foreman's arm, or sitting propped up in a rude jumper sleigh, directed operations in the canyon. He knew he was consuming the vitality that might purchase another few years' life in as many weeks of effort, but he desired only to see the work finished, and was satisfied to pay the price. He slept little and scarcely ate, holding on to his work with desperate purpose and living on cordials. Though progress was much slower than it would have been under Geoffrey's direction, he accomplished that purpose.

One afternoon Thomas Savine entered the sick man's room in a state of complacent satisfaction.

"Glad to see you getting ahead so fast, and you must hurry, for we'll want you soon," he said. "The great charge is to be fired the day after to-morrow. Shackleby, who was at the bottom of the whole opposition, has cleared out with considerable expedition. Sold all his stock in the Company, and if his colleagues knew much about his doings, which is quite possible, they emphatically disown them. As a result I've made one or two good provisional deals with them, and expect no more trouble. In short, everything points to a great success."

When Savine went out Geoffrey beckoned Helen to him.

"I am getting so well that you must leave me to your aunt to-morrow," he said. "You remember your promise to fire the decisive charge for me, and I hope when you see it you will approve of the electric firing key. Tell your father I owe more to him than the doctor, for I should have worried myself beyond the reach of physic if he had not been there to take charge instead of me—that is to say, before you came to cure me."

"I will go," agreed Helen, with signs of suppressed agitation that puzzled Geoffrey. She knew that after that charge had been fired their present relations, pleasant as they were, could not continue. It appeared to her the climax to which all he had dared and suffered, and with a humility that was yet akin to pride she had determined, in reparation, voluntarily to offer him that which, whether victorious or defeated otherwise, he had with infinite patience and loyal service won.

It was early one clear cold morning when Helen Savine stood on a little plank platform perched high in a hollow of the rock walls overhanging the river opposite Thurston's camp. Each detail of the scene burned itself into her memory as she gazed about her under a tense expectancy—the rift of blue sky between the filigree of dark pines high above, the rush of white-streaked water thundering down the gorge below and frothing high about the massive boulders, and one huge fang of promontory which a touch of her finger would, if all went well, reduce to chaotic debris. Groups of workmen waited on the opposite side of the flood, all staring towards her expectantly, and Thomas Savine stood close by holding an insignificant box with wires attached to it, in a hand that was not quite steady. Tom from Mattawa sat perched upon a spire of rock holding up a furled flag, and her father leaned heavily upon the rails of the staging. No one spoke or stirred, and in spite of the roar of hurrying water a deep oppressive silence seemed to brood over canyon and camp.

"This is the key," said Thomas Savine. "It is some notion of Geoffrey's, and he had it made especially in Toronto. You fit it in here."

Helen glanced at the diminutive object before she took the box. The finger grip had been fashioned out of a dollar cut clean across bearing two dates engraved upon it. The first, it flashed upon her, was the one on which she had given the worn-out man that very coin, while the other had evidently been added more recently, with less skill, by some camp artificer.

"It's to-day," said Thomas Savine following her eyes, and Helen noticed that his voice was strained. "Geoffrey told me to get it done. Quaint idea; don't know what it means. But put us out of suspense. We're all waiting."

Helen knew what the dates meant, and appreciated the delicate compliment. It was she who had started the daring contractor on his career who was to complete his triumph, and she drew a deep breath as she looked down into the thundering gorge realizing it was a great fight he had won. Human courage and dogged endurance, inspired by him, had mocked at the might of the river, and, blasting a new pathway for it through the adamantine heart of the hills, would roll back the barren waters from a good land that the stout of heart and arm might enter in. Swamps would give place to wheat fields, orchards blossom where willow swale had been, herds of cattle fatten on the levels of the lake, and the smoke of prosperous homesteads drift across dark forests where, for centuries, the wolf and deer had roamed undisturbed. That was one aspect only, but she knew the man who loved her had won a greater triumph over his own nature and others' passions and infirmities.

It was with a thrill of pride that the girl realized all that he had done for her, and yet for a few seconds she almost shrank from the responsibility as high above the waiting men the stood with slender fingers tightening upon the key. The issues of what must follow its turning would be momentous, for it flashed upon her that the tiny combination of copper and silver might, with equal chance, open the way to a golden future or let in overwhelming disaster upon all she loved. Then the doubt appeared an injustice to Geoffrey Thurston and those who had followed him through frost and flood and whirling snow, and, with a color on her forehead, and a light in her eyes, she pressed home the key.

Then there was bustle and hurry. Julius Savine raised his hand, and Tom from Mattawa whirled high the unfurled flag. Somebody beat upon an iron sheet invisible below and the strip of beach in the depths of the canyon became alive with running men. Next followed a deep stillness intensified by the clamor of the river which would never raise the same wild harmonies again, for the slender hand of a woman had bound it fast henceforward under man's dominion. The hush was ended suddenly. For a second the great hollow seemed filled with tongues of flame; then, while thick smoke quenched them and crag and boulder crumbled to fragments, a stunning detonation rang from rock to rock and rolled upwards into the frozen silence of untrodden hills. Huge masses which eddied and whirled, filling the gorge with the crash of their descent leaped out of the vapor; there was a ceaseless shock and patter of smaller fragments, and then, while long reverberations rolled among the hills, the roar of the tortured river drowned the mingled din. Rising, tremendous in its last revolt, its majestic diapason was deepened by the boom of grinding rock and the detonation of boulders reduced to powder. The draught caused by the water's passage fanned the smoke away, and the blue vapor, curling higher, drifted past the staging, so that Helen could only dimly see a great muddy wave foam down the canyon, bursting here and there into gigantic upheavals of spray. She watched it, held silent, awe-stricken, by the sound and sight.

At last Mattawa Tom appeared again, and his voice was faintly audible through the dying clamors as he waved his hands: "Juss gorgeous. Gone way better than the best we hoped," he hailed.

His comrades heard and answered. They were not mere hirelings toiling for a daily wage, but men who had a stake in that region's future, and would share its prosperity, and, had it been otherwise, they were human still. Toiling long with stubborn patience, often in imminent peril of life and limb; winning ground as it were by inches, and sometimes barely holding what they had won; fulfilling their race's destiny to subdue and people the waste places of the earth with the faith which, when aided by modern science, is greater than the mountains' immobility, they too rejoiced fervently over the consummation of the struggle. Twice a roar that was scarcely articulate filled the canyon, and then, growing into the expression of definite thought, it flung upward their leader's name.